A Policy Briefing aimed at healthcare professionals is available for LKS staff to share in their own organisations. This has been produced and shared by the JET Library, Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Please feel free to reproduce it (with acknowledgement to JET Library) for your own purposes.
Impact on library policy/practice:
Offer support with LKS resources and expertise
Concentrating on building relationships with VTS in order to maintain links once people move into General Practice
Link in with Medical Education to strengthen GP training.
Source: British Medical Association
Publication format: Website and pdf
Date of publication: April 2017
Summary of driver:
The General Practice Forward View (GP Forward View) was published in April 2016. The paper commits to an extra £2.4 billion a year to support general practice services by 2020/21. This will improve patient care and access, and invest in new ways of providing primary care. This is an update of the last 12 months from the BMA.
Key features of driver:
• An extra £220m was added to the GP funding pot for 2016/2017. CCGs added £102m to cover population growth and for local investment. Together this represents an immediate increase in funding of 4.4%
• £40m has been committed over four years to reduced workload of which £16m was committed for 2016/2017. By the end of March 2017 £17.2m had been spent reducing workload in 1,279 practices
• £10m was committed for supporting struggling practices of greatest concern. By the end of March 2017 £10.1m had been spent on 714 practices
• £30m was committed to a 9-12 month programme of workshops and learning sessions as part of the Time for Care programme. To date 86 schemes covering 107 CCGs are being supported by national resources and expertise
• 18 transformation areas have received £1.50 per patient to accelerate increased opening hours
• 653 schemes have been completed under The Estates and Technology Transformation Fund but the BMA are worried about the delay in the provision of this money leading to slow progress of the delivery of some projects
• There has been an increase in GPs in training but between September and December 2016 there was a decrease in the total of GPs of 390 (headcount) and 445 (FTE). The BMA is very worried that progress is not enough for the 2020/21 workforce targets to be achieved
• 370 GPs are now on the Induction and Refresher Scheme, 76 have completed so far and have now re-entered the GP workforce
• £112m was committed to fund clinical-pharmacist posts in General Practice on top of £31m for a pilot project already announced by NHS England. So far 491 clinical pharmacists have been funded by this scheme
• CCGs should plan to spend £3 per person as a one-off non-recurrent investment starting in 2017/2018 either as £1.50 per person over two years or £3 per person in one year. The money should be used for:
o Stimulating development of at-scale providers for improved access
o Stimulate implementation of the 10 high-impact actions to free up GP time and secure the sustainability of general practice
• BUT some CCGs have said they won’t be able to come up with the money or that it might come from other budgets. The BMA have raised this with NHS England at the highest levels
• £30m will be spent to tackle the rising costs of GP indemnity and the BMA, NHS England and the Department for Health are discussing this further
Primary audience: GPs CCG staff local government NHS organisations
Date last updated: April 2017
Due for review: April 2019
Group member responsible: LK