NHS England is currently investigating whether Commissioning Clinical Groups (CCGs) are delivering the £171m to transform GP practices.
The General Practice Forward View (GPFV) allocated £171m to CCGs for practice transformational support. CCGs are expected to spend around £3 per patient, as a one off non-recurrent investment, from 2017/18.
The investment can either be split over two years or take place in 2017/18 or 2018/19, as decided by the CCGs.
Speaking at the Royal College General Practitioners (RCGP) conference earlier this month, Dr Arvind Madan, NHS England’s director of primary care, said: ‘The £3 per head is a particularly contentious issue.
‘We are in the process of assuring, across all the CCGs, that this is being recognised in terms of an investment in primary care transformation.’
The funding was designed to help implement 10 high impact actions, designed to free up time for GPs, improve access and secure sustainability of general practice.
But GP leaders are worried that CCGs are not using the funding as intended, as they might find it challenging to set aside resources for transformation, especially when their care budgets are already tight.
Dr Mark Sanford-Wood, British Medical Association’s (BMA) GP Committee, told our sister publication Pulse that it is difficult to track the money and guaranty the £3 are actually going on practice transformation.
Virginia Patania, practice manager at the Jubilee Street practice, welcomed the GPFV initiatives but warned about the allocation of resources.
She said: ‘The GPFV offers some practical solutions to the dilemmas that we find ourselves in.
‘But right now, any resource attached to innovative initiatives landing at CCG or sustainability and transformation partnership (STP) levels benefit marginally, if at all, to practices.
‘So I would like to give some very careful thought to how we can make this matter for the people that deliver care at the front level.’
