NHS England takes action to ease pressures on GPs
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- Published: Monday, 19 September 2016 07:46
- Written by News Editor
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NHS England has agreed new steps to implement plans to strengthen general practice, ease the pressure on GPs and improve services for patients. The measures aim to help struggling GP practices, protect GPs from the rising cost of negligence claims and introduce new models of care that will create more joined-up services.
It follows the publications in April of The General Practice Forward View, a five year programme that aims to put General Practice on a sustainable footing for the future. The Officer of CDO plans to issue a Dental Forward View later this year.
The NHS England Board has agreed a package of immediate actions including:
- Release the first £16m of the new £40 million Practice Resilience Programme, a key part of the five-year General Practice Forward View, to help struggling practices across the country.
- The first phase of the three-year, £30 million general practice development programme, which will give every practice in the country the opportunity to receive training and development support.
- New funding to fully offset the rising cost of GP indemnity, and wider plans to reform indemnity arrangements
Simon Stevens, NHS England chief executive said: “We meant it when we said we would take concrete action to help relieve pressure on GP practices, and this funding is just the first instalment. Practices need support, now, and a few weeks on from the GP Forward View we’re getting on with practical action to do so.”
On the £40m Practice Resilience Programme, funding will be released this week in order to quickly secure help where it’s needed most. This new scheme builds on work underway since December to help those practices worst affected by rising patient demand and will allow a wider range of support to be delivered.
This support will include practical help to stabilise practices under most pressure and for those practices with workforce issues. This will include access to specialist support on HR, IT, staffing and practice management. Importantly the offer is not conditional on matched funding.
NHS England’s local teams will manage the funding as it will allow support to be developed and targeted more closely to practices or groups of practices where support is needed most. This builds on the extra funding for indemnity expenses built into the 2016/17 GP contract agreed with NHS England and the General Practitioners Committee.
On indemnity, NHS England has worked with the profession, medical defence organisations and the Department of Health to develop a twin track approach. A new Indemnity Support Scheme for practices will be introduced in April 2017 for at least the next two years while the Winter Indemnity Scheme will run for a further year.
The pay-for-performance element will replace the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) and Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) and should ensure that payment is based on outcomes delivered across multiple care settings and not based on individual episodes of care. In addition, a risk-sharing agreement with the acute sector means that the MCP will share the gains from reducing unplanned hospital admissions – for example by investing in faster primary care appointments.
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