Nene Commissioning is an award-winning social enterprise which brings together 76 GP practices across Northamptonshire into a practice-based commissioning (PBC) consortium with the aim of improving the health of the county. The practices in our consortium serve more than 657,000 out of the 696,000 patients in Northants. We work in close partnership with NHS Northamptonshire.

Nene Commissioning operates with a Board of Directors, of whom the majority are GPs, and across a four-locality structure. The size of the consortium means that we are a strong voice for GPs and can take advantage of economies of scale whilst the structure of the four localities means that our work can be more locally focused.

Each of the 75 participating practices sends a representative to a monthly locality meeting into which the representative feeds the views of their practice and then takes back the content of the meeting to their practice colleagues. The four localities are:

1. Daventry and South Northants (11 practices)
2. Kettering and Corby (15 practices)
3. Northampton Town (31 practices)
4. Wellingborough and East Northants (19 practices)

Each of these localities is chaired by a GP who is also a Director of the Nene Commissioning Board. There are nine GPs on the Board of Directors (two elected from each of the localities – apart from the larger Northampton locality which elects three). In addition there are two practice managers appointed onto the Board (one with responsibility for Practice and Public Involvement and the other for Corporate Management). The final member of the Board is the Chief Executive.

Nene Commissioning employs a small team of management support including four servicedevelopment managers, a communications manager, an information analyst, business manager and administrative support.