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New £30m development programme ‘will free up 10% of GP time’

A new £30m general practice development programme will offer practices training in finding ways to free up around 10% of GPs’ time, NHS chiefs announced today.

Details of the three-year programme, which was trailed earlier this year with the announcement of the GP Forward View, include a plan for groups of practices to receive a programme of workshops and learning sessions to come up with action plans.

From this, ‘most practices could expect to release about 10% of GP time over the 9-12 month period’, NHS England board papers state.

All practices will also take part in ‘Time for Care’ programmes to help them choose from a list of ten ’High Impact Actions’ identified by health chiefs to ‘help release capacity and work together at scale, enable self-care, introduce new technologies and make best use of the wider workforce, so freeing up GP time and improving access to services’.

The High Impact Actions cover offering phone, online and group consultations, cutting DNAs, improving GPs’ ‘personal productivity’, partnership working and social prescribing among other areas.

In addition to these areas, NHS England said it is ‘also commissioning training and coaching programmes to build capabilities for improvement and change leadership in practices and federations’.

The programme will be linked to other key pledges in the GP Forward View, to invest £45 million in training reception and clerical staff to take work off GPs, and £45 million in promoting uptake of online consultation systems.

Read more updates on the GP Forward View

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