The Government has unveiled its long-awaited recovery plan for general practice. Sofia Lind outlines the main points that will affect GPs
Triage
- Provide all practices with the digital tools and care navigation training for ‘Modern General Practice Access’ and fund transition cover for those that commit to adopt this approach before March 2025. (According to NHS England, ‘effective care navigation could direct over 15% of patients to teams that could better help them: administrative teams, self-care, community pharmacy or another local service’).
- Deliver training and transformation support to all practices from May 2023 through a new ‘National General Practice Improvement Programme’.
IT
- Support all practices on analogue lines to move to digital telephony, including call back functionality, if they sign up by July 2023.
- Enable patients in over 90% of practices to see their records and practice messages, book appointments and order repeat prescriptions using the NHS App by March 2024.
Redirecting patients to pharmacy
- Launch Pharmacy First so that by end of 2023 community pharmacies can supply prescription-only medicines for seven common conditions.
- Expand pharmacy oral contraception and blood pressure services this year, subject to consultation.
Self-referral
Ensure integrated care boards (ICBs) expand self-referral pathways by September 2023, as set out in the 2023/24 Operational Planning Guidance published in December.
ICBs have been asked to put in place:
- direct referral pathways from community optometrists to ophthalmology services for all urgent and elective eye consultations
- self-referral routes to falls response services, musculoskeletal services, audiology-including hearing aid provision, weight management services, community podiatry, and wheelchair and community equipment services.
Workforce
- Further expand GP specialty training (with details to be set out in the still-to-be-published NHS workforce plan) – and make it easier for newly trained GPs who require a visa to remain in England.
- Encourage experienced GPs to stay in practice through the pension reforms announced in the Budget and create simpler routes back to practice for the recently retired.
Bureaucracy
- Reduce time spent liaising with hospitals – by requiring ICBs to report progress on improving the interface with primary care, in line with recommendations from the Academy of Royal Colleges.
- Reduce requests to GPs to verify medical evidence, including by increasing self-certification, by continuing to advance the Bureaucracy Busting Concordat.
Source: NHS England
READERS' COMMENTS [9]
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Words and more words (and words we’ve heard umpteen times before)!
Most of this already exists and is being done. Other suggestions like telephony also need staff to hand calls and manage them both clinical and non clinical. Add to that the inability to refer patients to nhs 111 with no option available other than A&E. This is NOT A PLAN! This is total junk and stupidity! There is no new capacity in the recovery plan and that is what is needed.
We are reviewing the plan in detail if you want to join us on Sat for all the deets, but it is a chaotic plan, if you want to see more join us on eGPLearning
Already being done by most areas.
All we’re being handed is more IT to do the same things with.
I’m sure our overworked pharmacy colleagues and secondary care cant wait.
Of course the other elephant in the room is the usual lack of national patient education; that other highly qualified and appropriate people are available to help them and be shouted at instead of their lazy GP who will be on the golf course.
Meantime politicians continue to stand on a platform of GP face to face appointments for all, the same day for whatever you fancy.
No opd/post op advice letters to state “see your GP if there is any problem with work we have done on you”. Almost all the secondary care informatoin leaflets seem to have see your GP for any problems relating to work done by seconary care, sepecially post op.
Bottom line £645 million new money for community pharmacy , no new money for GPs just “ re targeting “ from previously announced money from IIF or ARSS or five year contract deal.
No workforce plan either !
And if they wanted to really reduce bureaucracy, get rid of most of QOF and IIF as Cross Party health select committee advised and leave the money in core contract .
I doubt community pharmacy have the staff to do all the extra work ( they certainly don’t in Devon) , but maybe that is the cunning plan , announce the money and profile it to a profession that has not got the staff to spend it .
I wonder if that £645 million is the ARSS underspend?
The ARRS scheme , digitisation , endless PCN meetings, all paradoxically creates work for GPs.
The best model of care is what we all did 15 years ago: patient books an appointment with GP; patient comes to see GP at specified time; patient gets advice from GP and may pop into pharmacy on way home to collect prescription; GP does referral (which will be accepted) and other admin as needed; GP finishes clinic and goes home… no need for anything else , just makes it more confusing and complicated
PCNs, and Clinical Directors will continue to suck the blood and drain funding from core General Practice until it is no more.
GPs know their job and can sort a patient from top to bottom with the aid of their practice nurse and secondary care colleagues where secondary care advice or referral is appropriate or necessary
There can be only one explanation: – ‘They’ are really out to destroy physician primary care. A mix of psychological and, metaphorically, on the physical ground attacks. The forces have been and are being assembled: – ‘physician associates’, pharmacists, nurse practitioners and Uncle Tom Cobley an’ all.