The next push for primary care reform has been announced to include the expansion of seven-day GPs and mental health services, NHS England has announced.
A host of new initiatives and projects were announced on 31 March to continue the Five Year Forward Plan, preparing for the increasing complexity in patient care expected by 2020. Its primary care contingent looks forward to 2019 to ‘ensure high quality GP services for patients and staff’.
A major part of the next phase is the roll out of place-based local care networks that will bring together communities of GPs, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, therapists and social care workers to deliver a single health and care system for neighbourhoods of 30,000-50,000 people.
GP and NHS England’s director of primary care Arvind Madan said: ‘If we look back to where general practice was a year ago, I think we have made significant progress but the journey is far from over. The measures we are setting out today will continue to build momentum behind the wider transformation of primary care and help us deliver the high quality, flexible health service that is needed in the face of ever-rising patient demand.’
By March 2018, NHS England plans for at least 40% of the country to have extended access to GP appointments at evenings and weekends and by March 2019 it is hoped this will extend to 100% of the country.
There are plans to have 800 mental health therapists in general practice by March 2018, rising to over 1,500 by March 2019.
NHS England also laid out the progress made by its plan so far, including that 17 million people now able to access GP appointments at evenings and weekends an estimated investment of at least an additional £500 million across 2016/17 and the increase of real-terms funding, up 8% over the past three years.