NHS England invests millions into North of England primary care since GPFV launch

More than £75m has been invested to transform primary care services across the North of England since the General Practice Forward View (GPFV), NHS England has announced.
 
More than £45m has been invested to transform primary care across Cheshire and Merseyside, while £30m has been spent across Lancashire and South Cumbria, NHS England said today (20 April).
 
These figures, released today, mark the second anniversary of the launch of the GPFV, which committed to £2.4bn a year by 2020/21 to transform and get general practice ‘back on its feet’.
 
The GPFV also included a £6m investment to further develop practice managers’ roles.
 
Between 2016 and 2018, over £45m was allocated to initiatives in support of the general practice workforce across Cheshire and Merseyside, which resulted in 56 clinical pharmacists now working across Cheshire and Merseyside covering a population of 800,000 people.
 
Springfields Medical Centre
 
Springfields Medical Centre in Warrington has been hailed a ‘practice of the future’ after successfully employing a clinical pharmacist and ‘upskilling staff into specialist new roles to manage prescribing and patient care’.
 
Making these changes allowed the practice to save GP time to deal with patients with more complex needs.
 
Springfields practice manager Lorraine Stratulis said: ‘By creating these new roles, we have improved the care that our patients receive and have maximised staff retention by helping our team to achieve career goals and move forward with their employment in the medical profession’.
 
For instance, assistant practice manager at Springfields practice Judith Southart was promoted to care co-ordinator, and now oversees the medication and treatment of patients with end of life and palliative care.
 
Darwen Healthcare
 
Creating new roles to improve general practice was common among practices in Lancashire and South Cumbria, where £1.4m was spent on general practice workforce in the past two years.
 
Darwen Healthcare in Darwen, which was one of the first practices in Lancashire to introduce the role of a physician associate, also trained a healthcare assistant to become assistant practitioner and help pre-diabetic patients.  
 
Practice business manager Ann Neville said: ‘There are so many changes within general practice at the moment and it is an exciting time, with many new roles starting to emerge.
 
‘Before we made these changes, our GPs used to come in early and leave at 9pm when the cleaners finished.
 
‘By making changes to our team and the way we work, we have been able to free up GP time. This has enabled us to increase appointment times for patients who need to see a GP from 10 minutes to 15 minutes and our GPs can leave work on time, so everyone benefits.’