GP contract 2023/24 Update
Date sent: Tuesday 7 March 2023
All GPs and Practice Managers
Dear Colleagues
On 3rd March 2023 Dr Kiran Sharrock, Acting Chair of GPC England (GPCE) shared details of the contract changes for 23/24 with all LMCs. Unfortunately, repeated negotiations last week failed to change February’s contract offer. The BMA now expects the imposition of a contract on practices, and will be discussing with GP members and the wider profession how they wish to proceed.
The BMA have reported ‘GP leaders are dismayed as the Secretary of State refuses additional help for practices. This offer included no extra help for practices to meet the rising costs of running practices, while lumping more bureaucracy and arbitrary targets on practices that only set them up to fail.’ Further details
Full details of the contract changes can be found here
It does take a little time to wade through the details but we hope that the summary below gives the salient headlines
1. Access requirements
- Practices will therefore no longer be able to request that patients contact the practice at a later time
- Greater focus on patients being able to access their records on line
2 Changes to Impact and Investment Fund and QOF
- IIF will mainly focus on improving patient experience of contacting their practice and receiving a response with an assessment and/or be seen within the appropriate period (for example same day or within 2 weeks where appropriate, depending on urgency).
- QOF QI modules will focus on workforce wellbeing and optimising demand and capacity in General Practice with an emphasis on using data to analyse potentially avoidable appointments and build on care navigation and use of wider workforce or local services to reduce pressure on General Practice
3. Increased flexibility of ARRS
- To support PCNs to recruit the teams that they need, there are a number of changes to the ARRS, including adding Advanced Clinical Practitioner Nurses to the reimbursable roles, increasing the cap on Advanced Practitioners to three per PCN and removing the caps on Mental Health Practitioners.
4 Immunisations
- The removal of the vaccination and immunisations repayment mechanism for practice performance below 80% coverage for routine childhood programmes along with changes to the childhood vaccination and immunisation indicators within QOF which will see the lower thresholds reduced to 81% – 89% (dependent on indicator) and the upper thresholds raised to 96%.
2023/24 GP contract update webinars
The GPC have opened these up for BMA and non BMA members. They will be repeated on the dates below. Please consider joining one of these – your LMC want to know your views. Register here
• Tuesday 21st March 19.00-20.30
• Wednesday 22nd March 12.30-14.00
• Wednesday 29th March 19.00-20.30
• Thursday 30th March 12.30-14.00
We know the pressures are extreme for many practices, evidenced by the Opel 4 reporting via GPAS. There may not be an answer to our challenges from central government but we have seen the closure of two practices so we know the challenges are very real! We must work safely. In Somerset we need to have a clear strategy as to how we thrive! The Somerset LMC believe that having a real understanding of our demand, focusing on improving our workforce and securing local funding to provide Somerset GP resilience is a way ahead.
We welcome your thoughts.
Kindest Regards
Somerset LMC
Tel (01823) 331428
Mobile 07824 545315
Fax (01823) 338561
Website: www.somersetlmc.co.uk
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