Practice staff are being encouraged to share their views in a survey launched as part of an initiative to identify how bureaucracy primary and secondary care can be cut down.
The ‘Red Tape Challenge’ was announced by Health Minister Wes Streeting last month to review ‘work and engagement on the interface between primary and secondary care’, such as how referrals are made and managed, and understand where improvements can be made.
A seven-question survey is now open to all staff in primary care – non-clinical as well as clinical – asking for views on how to reduce workload between NHS organisations and providers.
It asks participants for their short-term and long-term priorities for streamlining the interface between the different parts of the health service.
The survey also asks if there are any barriers to achieving these goals, what they are and how they can be unblocked.
And participants are asked what is needed at local, regional and national levels to improve the interface between the different parts of the NHS.
The Red Tape Challenge is being jointly led by NHS England’s director of primary care Claire Fuller and Stella Vig, medical director for secondary care. They will report back to the health secretary and NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard in the New Year.
The review seeks to improve understanding of the issues and set out operational improvements that could be adopted in areas including referrals, patient discharge and communication between different parts of the health service.
NHS England has said it will engage with a range of stakeholders including GPs, hospitals and integrated care boards before the feedback is considered by a review group made up of doctors in primary and secondary care.
