NHS LONG TERM PLAN
Primarycareandthe LongTermPlan
Associate professor Philip Evans from the National Institute for Health Research (NHR) discusses NHS England’s five year framework for the GP services contract1
expanding GP services through billions of pounds of extra investment.
In January 2019, NHS England announced a new five year framework for the GP services contract2
in support of the NHS
Long Term Plan - with the aim of expanding GP services through billions of extra investment. The NHS Long Term Plan also recognises
the importance of research and innovation in terms of driving future improvements in health outcomes. Significantly for primary care, this ambition is underpinned within the new GP contract framework through the provision of additional support for clinical research - from partners including the NIHR, NHS England and Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP). It also includes a range of other measures which ultimately will make it easier for general practice to get involved in research.
New potential for research through larger units of practice
One of the standout measures within the new contract framework is how local primary care networks (PCNs) will join up the delivery of key health services across communities. Although such networks already exist to some extent, the new GP contract framework goes one step further - requiring networks to be established across the whole country by the end of June 2019. All GP practices will be mandated to become part of a primary care network, serving populations of 30 to 50,000, while transition to this new model will be incentivised by £1.8 billion of funding -
available to networks across the country by 2023. With the NHS Long Term Plan’s ambitious commitment to increase the number of people taking part in research to one million by 2023/24, the formation of an integrated system of primary care networks across the country, each serving significant groups of the population, will play a key role in achieving this target, by enabling even more practices and their patients to get involved. Primary care networks will also bring new opportunities for GP practices to collaborate
[A] key element of the contract framework is around staffing and the recognition that with the challenges currently facing general practice, clinical delivery of care cannot be exclusively provided by GPs in the face of by an ageing population and ever increasing demand.
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and work more closely together, share best practice and realise significant economies of scale. These elements are designed to lead to better care and services for patients at this somewhat challenging time for general practice - by incentivising general practice working at scale, but will also benefit the delivery of primary care research. A ‘research at scale’ model for the delivery
of primary care studies has already been shown to be successful in the North West London region, where a pilot scheme involving GP Federations within localities yielded extremely positive results - leading to a significant increase in the number of practices engaged in research3
year period in which the scheme ran.
Addressing the workforce Another key element of the contract framework is around staffing and the recognition that, with the challenges currently facing general practice, clinical delivery of care cannot be exclusively provided by GPs in the face of by an ageing population and ever increasing demand.
AUGUST 2019 in support of the NHS Long Term Plan - with the aim of
over the two
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