Resilience teams should be sent into practices that are ‘on the edge’, as part of the emergency support package for general practice, the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) has recommended to NHS England.
These teams would include practice managers – an RCGP spokesperson told Management in Practice – along with GPs and practice nurses.
This comes after health minister Jeremy Hunt stated that an emergency support package for general practice will be announced later this month.
Maureen Baker, chair of RCGP, called for “resilience teams that can be parachuted into practices, from whom practices can request help to plug staff gaps that might otherwise tip them over the edge.”
The RCGP have estimated the cost of the proposal, and believe it is financially realistic.
Other recommendations included basing mental health workers in general practices for real-time referrals and support, grants to help practice upgrade their IT infrastructure, and more investment in the GP out-of-hours service.
The College also said a new return-to-nursing scheme should be implemented, which would mean at least 500 new practice nurses over the next year.
“We need to see that cavalry coming over the hill, and we need to see it soon,” Baker added.
