New organisations which will commission and design healthcare services have been given the green light to become fully established from Monday.

The new clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) put family doctors at the forefront of NHS reforms. Under the changes, primary care trusts (PCTs) will be abolished and CCGs will take over some of their responsibilities.

The CCGs are made up of member GP practices which, through their constitution, establish a governing body to oversee the way they carry out their responsibilities.

As a minimum, the governing body includes GPs, a hospital specialist, a nurse, two lay members, a chief financial officer and the accountable officer.

Six CCGs will be established across Airedale, Bradford and Leeds from April 1. The accountable officer for the Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven CCG is Dr Phil Pue.

Services the CCGs will buy include community health services; maternity services; planned hospital care, rehabilitation services, urgent and emergency care, ambulances and out-of-hours services.

Some specialist services will be commissioned by the NHS Commissioning Board, including community pharmacy and NHS sight tests, all dental services, high security psychiatric services, health services for prisoners and some public health services.

Public health services will be provided by local councils including responsibility for services such as sexual health services, the Healthy Child programme, local programmes to promote physical activity and healthy eating, drug and alcohol misuse services, stop smoking services and local projects to reduce deaths in winter.

The Directors of Public Health are Dr Ian Cameron at Leeds City Council and Dr Anita Parkin at Bradford Council.

Kevin Howells, acting chief executive of Airedale, Bradford and Leeds Primary Care Trust, said: “We are confident that in April 2013 there will be a smooth handover of our commissioning and public health responsibilities to the CCGs, local authorities and NHS Commissioning Board.

“We have ensured that the new organisations have solid foundations on which to build their health commissioning priorities thanks to the efforts of our staff and partners.”