Former Liberal Democrats leader Tim Farron has criticised his ICB’s decision to cut a minor injury service following a review of all local enhanced services.
Pulse reported this week that Lancashire and South Cumrbia (LSC) ICB’s LES review had resulted in a £14m boost to funding across the area, which local GP leaders celebrated as a ‘huge’ achievement.
But this review also led to the ICB deciding to ‘discontinue the general practice service’ for minor injuries in Morecambe Bay from 1 May 2025.
Speaking in Parliament last week, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale Tim Farron called on health ministers to ‘challenge’ this decision, highlighting the risks for his rural community as well as GP funding.
He said that Morecambe Bay is ‘funded as if [they] have one hospital, but have to have three’, and that one solution to this was to fund GP surgeries to provide minor injury care.
He told secondary care health minister Karin Smyth: ‘There was a total of 1,221 minor injury assessments last year; they are now pushed on to the urgent treatment centre at Kendal, potentially overloading that excellent centre, but also causing huge harm to people who live in those rural and dispersed places, and undermining the funding model for those GP surgeries and putting them at risk.
‘I would love it if the Minister had words with the ICB to challenge it on this.’
LSC ICB said the changes to LES funding in 2025/26 addressed ‘historical variation’ across the area – resulting from previous CCG footprints – and mean that the ICB is now ‘consistently commissioning’ all routine local enhanced services.
But it confirmed that the minor injury service for Morecambe Bay had been cut, since there are other local services available to patients.
ICB chief operating officer Professor Craig Harris said: ‘The ICB has recently undertaken a major review of the locally commissioned services provided by general practices to ensure we are commissioning consistently across Lancashire and South Cumbria.
‘One of the services we have looked at is minor injuries, which is provided by general practices in a few parts of Lancashire and South Cumbria.
‘After thoroughly considering the options, including engagement with clinical colleagues, a decision was made to discontinue the general practice service from 1 May 2025 as there are other minor injury services and sources of advice available to our local population.
‘As part of this review, the ICB has increased investment into an extended range of general practice services which aim to provide more care closer to people’s homes.’
Pulse recently reported on Somerset GPs reaching an agreement with their ICB for an extra £2m investment to cover services such as ADHD, minor surgery and bariatric surgery monitoring.
The LMC said this extra money will ‘address gaps in service’ that have been ‘highlighted through collective action’.
As part of collective action last year, GPs in several areas came together to serve notice to their ICBs on unfunded work including various services and shared care arrangements.
So ICB wants more care closer to patients homes, EXCEPT when the care they need is for an urgent minor injury !
perverse.
Making short term cuts at the expense of long term planning?…..
Points to a lack of understanding of health economics in that for some services every £1 spent in primary care to provide care has significant savings in secondary care if not immediately in monetary terms but in managing capacity.
Services can not cease in isolation without causing a ripple effect. The demand doesn’t go away it just puts stress on other NHS services.