‘We’re not there yet!’: a qualitative study exploring the commissioning of adult Community Health Services in England to support the avoidance of hospital admissions

Our focus on the commissioning of CHS has highlighted the fact that the new collaborative approach to service design and delivery embodied by the creation of Integrated Care Boards has led to some confusion around decision-making. In addition, the lack of appropriate data and the funding and contractual model used to procure CHS impacts their ability to contribute to the policy agenda of treating more people in the community. These factors should be addressed if CHS are to fulfil ambitions of preventing hospital admissions.