Nurses’ experiences of clinical commissioning group boards

The following paper is the first in a series of three papers to highlight current practice among governing body nurses, that is, nurses who hold the statutory role of nurse member on clinical commissioning groups in England. In this paper we present findings from a small pilot study into these nurses’ experiences of Clinical Commissioning Groups. Their roles have emerged at a time of organisational change and in a period following extensive criticism of nursing and nurses in the media. We suggest that nurses’ roles and experiences are affected by these contextual ‘events’ and by the emerging structures and diversity of clinical commissioning groups. We argue that governing body nurses’ effectiveness in leading nurses and nursing on clinical commissioning groups may be affected by their relationships with other nurses, especially senior nurses, within clinical commissioning group localities. We suggest that it is timely to evaluate the effectiveness of statutory nurse member roles in influencing decision making on Clinical Commissioning Groups.

This is the author’s accepted manuscript it is not the version of record. The final, published version is published by RCN Publishing and is on the Nursing Standard website: https://doi.org/10.7748/ns.2016.e9633