26 February 2014
Dear Colleague
Halt to care.dataprogramme
I am pleased to say that GPC was instrumental in securing a six-month delay to the implementation of the government's care.data scheme following several weeks of urgent talks with NHS England regarding GPs' significant concerns about a lack of awareness among patients of the scheme. In our call for action we urged the government to halt any uploading of patient data until a properly informed public awareness campaign was put in place.
Now that NHS England has acted on our concerns it is vital we use the delay productively. We have already opened dialogue with NHS England on the next steps, including having their National Director for Patients and Information, Tim Kelsey, attend last week's GPC meeting.
Today, I spoke at the All-Party Parliamentary Health Group meeting and, yesterday, I appeared before the Health Select Committee to present GPs' views on care.data. I emphasised that we are custodians of sensitive and confidential patient information and any fears patients have about the security of their data will damage the trust they place in us as GPs. The care.data system must engender the confidence of GPs and patients alike and their ability to make informed choices about the use of their data.
Given the degree of publicity, some of your patients may have questions about what is happening with their personal data. Please advise them that this scheme has been put on hold until the autumn, pending an adequate public information programme and assurances that data will be properly protected and used only to improve healthcare.
£5 per head funding for practices to improve care for vulnerable older adults
It is welcome that NHS England's recent planning guidance, Everyone Counts, recognises the need for practices to be given additional resources to provide improved quality of care for patients over the age of 75, over and above the avoiding unplanned admissions enhanced service that will be coming into effect in April. CCGs are expected to fund practices at around £5 pounds per head of practice population.
I would therefore urge practices to contact their CCG Board now with regards to making these funds available, and also to contact their LMC for any additional advice. For more information see paragraphs 36 and 37 in this NHS Guidance.
Funding redistribution for GMS practices
You will be aware that from April 1, there will be funding changes for GMS practices as part of last year's government's contract imposition, which will see the phasing out of MPIG over a seven-year period. There will be redistribution of the correction factor across allGMS practices, with each ending with an equivalent weighted £ per head funding in seven years.
This will mean that about half of GMS practices will lose funding, while the other half will gain. Our biggest concern is for those practices which will lose significant sums of money and the impact this could have on service provision or even practice viability.
NHS England has identified 98 practices as ‘outliers'; those who will suffer the greatest losses. They have assured us these practices will be offered appropriate financial protection. However, in late December, Area Teams were somewhat belatedly told that these arrangements would be left to local discretion. We have not been advised of the identity of these practices, with NHS England stating this information is commercially sensitive.
We have expressed our dismay at this being a local process instead of being nationally directed, and that it is unacceptable to leave practices at the mercy of local negotiations just weeks before these funding cuts take effect.
We strongly encourage outlying and any other significantly adversely affected practices to contact their LMC so that they can work with Area Teams to find an acceptable way forward.
PMS practices
NHS England has also announced funding changes for PMS practices. It has identified £235m of ‘premium' PMS expenditure as the amount by which PMS funding exceeds total GMS expenditure of global sum plus correction factor.
It is proposed that this £235m premium funding will be redeployed for new GP services, with equal opportunity across GMS and PMS practices, according to criteria set by NHS England. Area Teams will have up to two years from April this year to review their local PMS contracts, with the pace of change on the redeployment of premium funding following the reviews being left to local judgement.
We have firmly advised NHS England that this is an inappropriate approach at a time when GP practices are overstretched, and that it would be better to redistribute this premium funding across all GMS and PMS practices to provide improved core services to patients. We will be issuing guidance shortly on this matter.
NHS England also recently agreed to pay PMS practices belatedly their proportion of the historic resource for employer locum superannuation. This funding should be added to PMS budgets.
Other engagements
On 12 February, I attended and delivered a keynote speech to an excellent and well attendedLondonwide LMC conference on The Power of Collaboration. It comprised presentations and workshops allowing GPs to explore and learn about how best to work together to maximise cost-efficiencies and productivity.
I attended the Welsh LMC conference over the weekend of 15 and 16 February. I would like to thank Charlotte Jones, GPC Wales Chair, and Eammon Jessup, Chair of Conference, for wonderful Welsh hospitality mixed with excellent debate. It was illuminating to observe the common themes affecting GPs across the border. A particular highlight for me was the evening entertainment from a band made up of highly talented GPC members.
This week I was one of a senior BMA team that met with the Labour health team, as part of the BMA periodically meeting all the major political parties. I use every opportunity of advising politicians from all parties of the remarkable success of UK general practice, and the benefits to be reaped by supporting and investing in general practice as a means to delivering future sustainability in the NHS.
Finally, as always, please get in touch here with any feedback.
Best wishes,
ChaandNagpaul
GP trainees seminar
I want to remind the trainees amongst us to attend our Getting Ready for General Practice seminar on 27 March at BMA House, London. This promises to be an interesting day with sessions on working as a freelance or salaried GP and getting a partnership. I hope to see many GP trainees there.
You can register here
GPC survey of practice networks and federations
If you have not yet completed our survey on GP practice networks and collaboration, please do so here. The survey will only take about 2 minutes to complete and the results will allow GPC to best support you in the future
GPC and the media
With GPC taking the lead on securing the delay of care.data, we received extensive national and regional coverage both for our first press release and our second one last week to coincide with the announcement of the delay. This included: interviews by me on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 5Live plus coverage on Sky News, LBC Radio and the ITV News; as well as multiple articles throughout the week in the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, The Times, Independent, Daily Mirror, Metro, Guardian andDaily Express.
In addition to this, we issued a press release calling for a national plan to help those practices affected by the phasing out of MPIG. This included case studies from two GPs in rural practices, Dr Katharina Frey and Dr Julian Fester. We received considerable coverage including articles in the Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Independent i and the Guardian. As well as this national coverage, Dr Frey and I were interviewed for ITV Daybreak and the story was also covered by Sky Newsand LBC Radio. We also achieved extensive regional coverage including opinion pieces placed in the Northern Echo and Yorkshire Post.