Doctors and other such

I did some joint commissioning last night with my friend ( well she is till she reads my report! ) the President of the Royal College of GPs, fiesty Clare Gerada.

We had both been at a dinner at Deloitte for doctors and ACEVO members and as we both live in Lambeth we decided to get a cab home. I mused on whether we should do a procurement exercise and stop 3 taxis and see what offered the lowest price, but in the end we went for spot purchasing and as I live in brixton and Clare in Kennington she got a free ride. Is that cherry picking I wondered?

The dinner, and session before was excellent. ACEVO is undertaking a review with ippr on how the third sector relates to GPs. There has been concern amongst members that GPs are not acquainted with the full scope of the sector. Our role in delivery as well as advocacy and advice, research and volunteering and community development.

We had a lively discussion. Clare herself is well up on the sector- indeed does work with Victor's Turning Point. We are going to develop work in ACEVO on this which will help develop the new consortia commissioning process.

But during the day we held a strategic awayday for the Adventure Capital Fund, which I chair and which invests in community enterprise. We had presentations from 2 of our investees; a company in N Yorkshire " Chopsticks" that produces woodchips and kindling for the community but working with an intrepid band of young people who could not get jobs elsewhere due to their disabilities . It is highly successful. Then a community school in Liverpool , Lister steps, which looks after kids from 2 to 12. It has a review of its social impact by New economics which showed for every £ they spent there was added value in the local community at £46. And yet they are struggling. Practically no support from the council , who have to implement major cuts anyway.

Get a text from old friend Gordon Marsden MP who says he met Obama yesterday and had a chat! Was I jealous. And I noticed Michelle Obama was at my old Oxford College , Christ Church with her bunch of aspiring school kids. Those were definitely the hot tickets of the day!