The Government has revealed that £88m of Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) funding went unspent by PCNs in 2023/24.
This equates to around 6% of the total £1.41bn available to PCNs that year, and NHS England does not guarantee that this underspent money stays in general practice.
NHS England told Pulse that where underspends occur in national programmes for general practice, such as the ARRS, any funding that cannot be reinvested in general practice will contribute to support the overall NHS financial position.
This week, in response to a question on ARRS underspend, primary care minister Stephen Kinnock said: ‘The most recent complete year for which data is available on underspend for the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme is 2023/24.
‘The maximum value of PCN level entitlements available under the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme in 2023/24 was £1,412 million.
‘Total expenditure by PCNs in 2023/24 was £88 million below the maximum entitlements.’
NHSE confirmed that total ARRS expenditure that year was £1,324m, but did not confirm where the spare funding was spent.
Pulse’s sister title PulsePCN had previously obtained Freedom of Information data from ICBs which suggested that PCNs had underspent on ARRS by more than £45m in 2023/24, and that only a fraction of this sum (£2.3m) was reallocated to PCNs while the rest was retained by NSHE.
During 2023/24, under the Network DES, PCNs within an ICB area were able to bid for any unclaimed funding.
But NHS England removed this mechanism within the Network DES from last year onwards, and encouraged PCN to ‘recruit up to their individual entitlements’.
In 2023, the BMA warned that millions of pounds underspent in general practice via the ARRS would likely be returned to the Treasury.
Last year, the Government added GPs to the ARRS with £82m of funding which was intended to hire 1,000 more doctors in 2024/25.
And in January, NHSE primary care director urged all PCNs to ‘use their GP ARRS funding entitlement’ for the current year.
