On Thursday, health secretary Therese Coffey will be outlining the government’s new initiative, 'Our Plan for Patients', which will improve access to GP appointments and other key services.
Building on the NHS Winter Plan, Coffey is aiming to ensure that anyone can get an appointment at a GP practice within a fortnight, while patients in most need can be seen on the same day. Currently, one in every five appointments take longer than two weeks.
Patients will also be able to access information about their local practice’s appointment availability and performance, with appointments data set to be published at practice level for the first time.
Rules around funding will be tweaked to enable GPs to take on extra staff, freeing them up to focus on treating patients. New staff that practices will be able to recruit include GP assistants and more advanced nurse practitioners, on top of their current ability to bring in more pharmacists, mental health practitioners and nursing associates. The government says that this move could free up more than a million appointments over the course of a year, and will form part of its plan to add 26,000 more primary care staff to the industry workforce.
Pharmacies will also be required to step-up to ease the pressure on GP surgeries by being given the ability to manage and supply more medicines without prescriptions being required, as well as taking referrals from emergency care settings for more minor illnesses. Ministers say that this could free up to two million GP appointments annually.
Part of the plan will also involve a “national endeavour” to drum up volunteers, after more than a million voluntary staff stepped up to support the health service during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Coffey will say in the Commons on Thursday: “I will put a laser-like focus on the needs of patients, making their priorities my priorities and being a champion for them on the issues that affect them most.
“Our Plan for Patients will make it easier to get a general practice appointment and we will work tirelessly to deliver that, alongside supporting our hardworking GP teams.
“We know this winter will be tough and this is just the first step in our work to bolster our valued NHS and social care services so people can get the care they need.”
To help patients access their GP practices better, the NHS will be rolling out more up-to-date cloud-based telephone systems and opening more phone lines, to avoid the need for long waits in telephone queues.
Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of the NHS, commented: “I know how much patients value timely, convenient access to GPs and primary care, the front door to the NHS, which is why we are continuing to drive improvements, including new roles to better meet patients’ needs and new tech to make contacting your local surgery easier.
“NHS staff are working incredibly hard to deliver record numbers of GP appointments for patients, with 11 million more this year so far than the same period last year, and more than four in five people who need an appointment seen within two weeks, including more than two fifths within one day.
“We will work with the government so we can support NHS staff to deliver these new ambitions for patients, underpinned by the development of a long-term workforce plan.”
However, there are doubts from within the sector and from the political opposition that the plan will produce the desired result, owing to the fact that there are not enough fully qualified, full-time GPs to deliver services.
Professor Martin Marshall from the Royal College of GPs suggested that the plan was akin to “lumbering a struggling service with more expectations” without the requisite support to hit targets and would have “minimal impact.”
Prof Marshall explained: “GPs share patients’ frustrations when we cannot deliver the care we want to deliver in a timely way. But we are caring for an increasing number of patients, with increasingly complex health needs and carrying out more consultations with fewer qualified, full-time GPs.”
Helen Buckingham, director of strategy at the Nuffield Trust think tank, said: “The government is right to be looking at ways to ease pressure on GP services – whether through an expanded role for pharmacists, using different staff within a GP practice, and improving creaking telephone systems.
“But even if this frees up some of their time, the truth is that we are chronically short of GPs, with the number of GPs per person in England falling year after year. Targets don’t create any more doctors. The success of this proposal will rest on whether the government can genuinely do enough to retain doctors at risk of quitting the profession, as well as how successful it is in recruiting more support staff.
“The commitment to guarantee an appointment within two weeks may make good politics, but risks applying a one-size fits all solution to a significantly more complex picture. Government should step back from micro-managing timescales for appointments and instead focus on the outcomes they want to see in primary care.”
Labour shadow health secretary Wes Streeting added: “The Conservatives have failed to provide the doctors and nurses needed to treat patients on time - and patients are paying the price in record long waiting times.
“Unless the government brings forward a plan for the NHS staffing crisis, they don't have a plan for the NHS.”
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
