Today the Secretary of State for Health launched the Primary Care Recovery Plan.
The key elements of the plan are:
- Tacking the 8am rush. Spending the equivalent of £35,000 per practice to provide new technology for GPs, to make it easier to get through and get a response on the same day.
- Introducing pharmacy first. Spending £645 million to enable pharmacists to provide treatment for common conditions. Pharmacists will be able to supply prescription-only medicines for ear pain; severe sore throat; skin infections and urinary infections. They will be able to start courses of oral contraception.
- Cutting bureaucracy to free up GP time. Freeing up around £37,000 per practice by cutting back targets, improving communication between GPs and hospitals, and reducing GPs having to do work that non-GPs can do. Patients will also now be able to self-refer for some services, including physiotherapy, hearing tests, and podiatry, without seeing their GP first.
- Delivering more appointments and more staff. Ensuring that we have an extra 26,000 clinicians and 50 million extra appointments by March 2024. The Governments forthcoming NHS workforce plan will set out plans to expand GP training. We’re helping retain senior GPs by reforming pension rules, lifting 8,900 GPs out of annual tax charges. Tens of thousands more people will be at lower risk of a heart attack or stroke, with the NHS more than doubling the number of people able to access blood pressure checks in their local pharmacy – 2.5 million, up from 900,000 carried out last year.
Following the Secretary of State's Statement, Greg Smith MP welcomed this plan but also raised the need for GP services in rural communities to be local and convenient, once more calling on him to help secure the funding for the construction of a new health centre in Long Crendon that the local community have done so much to progress, including securing the land and planning permission. Our Integrated Care Board has already agreed a rent to home GPs in the new building, but we still need them to fund the construction. Not only would this new health centre serve Long Crendon and surrounding villages, but also relieve the pressure on Brill surgery, where Long Crendon patients are currently displaced too. Greg will not give up on exploring every avenue to get this new health centre funded.
