An ICB has decided to cut funding for wellbeing support and mentoring services for GPs due to ‘financial pressures’.
Provider GPMplus has been running support services for GP teams in Humber and North Yorkshire since 2021, but said it will now ‘wind down’ its services in the area as the local ICB is ‘not in a position’ to continue commissioning them.
The local LMC warned that the cuts ‘leave very few places for GPs and practice staff to turn’ should the need confidential support amid ‘significant’ pressures on primary care.
In an update to practices, GPMplus said: ‘Our services have been supported and commissioned by Humber and North Yorkshire ICB, allowing our services to be accessed free at the point of contact for practice staff.
‘We are proud to have provided over 700 course places to practice staff, and supported 225 mentees, over the last three years.
‘Unfortunately, due to financial pressures felt in many areas, the ICB have not been in a position to continue to commission GPMplus services for general practice in 2024/25 – we are therefore now in the process of winding down our commissioned services in Humber and North Yorkshire.’
It added that GPMplus will continue to exist and provide support to general practice as their services are still commissioned in other areas, and that Humber and North Yorkshire practices may be able to continue accessing services using practice or PCN funding.
LMC chief executive and medical director Dr Zoe Norris told Pulse: ‘The GPMplus programme has provided a place for us to direct our general practice teams to when they need extra, confidential support amidst the significant pressures on primary care at the moment.
‘Our ICS has lost our resilience hub which had provided excellent crisis support for teams, and now the GPMplus service is ending.
‘This leaves very few places for our GPs and practice staff to turn, and while the LMC is always happy to offer pastoral support and be the first port of call, we can’t replace trained coaches and professionals.
‘It’s easy for the system to forget that general practice doesn’t have access to occupational health, employee assistance programmes or staff networks in the same way NHS staff in other providers to. The loss of these services furthers the inequity experienced by the primary care workforce.’
Humberside and North Yorkshire ICB has declined to comment.
GPMplus is the trading name of LMC Services Yorkshire CIC and delivers free wellbeing support services to primary care including schemes and events to support wellbeing.
Last year, the service was highly commended in the General Practice Awards, in the education programme/provider of the year category.
It comes as NHS England recently extended the contract for the national GP mental health support service, NHS Practitioner Health, for 12 months, after a controversial proposal to cut funding.
Last month, Lancashire and Cumbria ICB excluded GPs from a training course due to lack of funding for their retention, in a move that the BMA’s GP committee described as ‘disgraceful’.
Following pressures from the profession and criticism from GP leaders, the ICB reversed its decision and confirmed that the funding for the course will continue.
