Next government should prioritise pay, PCN staff say

Exclusive: The next government needs to prioritise better pay within the NHS, according to PCN staff.

In a Pulse PCN survey on the state of primary care, 56% of respondents said better pay for NHS staff should be a high priority for the next government.

Recruitment of GPs was also noted, with 52% considering this a high priority, and 45% saying ambulance response times (see box).

It comes as a general election has been called by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for 4 July.

Around 257 PCN staff were surveyed, including GPs with a PCN role, clinical directors, PCN managers and ARRS staff, including nurse associates and clinical pharmacists.

Respondents were asked to mark various issues on a scale of priority from one to five, one being a low priority and five being high.

They suggested that scrapping PCNs should not be on the agenda, with 42% considering this a low priority. A quarter (25%) added that AI-driven care should be a low priority and 21% considered driving forward integrated neighbourhood teams to also be low on the list.

The question was part of a wider survey of over 1,795 healthcare professionals on the State of Primary Care which will inform a report due out next month. It ran over a three-week period across Pulse PCN and its sister titles. Alongside PCN staff, those who responded included GPs without a PCN role, general practice and community nurses, community pharmacists, practice managers, hospital consultants and hospital pharmacists.

Dr Laura Mount, clinical director at Central and West Warrington PCN, told Pulse PCN the next government should prioritise funding, staff pay and workforce plans.

‘Their priorities should be a stable five-year contract so we can plan services better, giving PCNs the investment to spend time designing new models of care, increased ARRS budget so we can continue to develop services and ensuring funding moves into community and primary care so that we can keep patients well and at home,’ she said.

Dr Mount added that the next government needs to ‘deliver’ on the workforce plan and to ‘give practices the funds to give staff 2% pay rises so we stop losing staff to supermarkets’.

Clinical director at Cannock North PCN, Dr Manu Agrawal, added that there should be a ‘recognition’ of the inflation uplift and its impact on PCNs.

‘Moving forward there should be a commitment from the government to have at least minimum inflationary uplift and also recognising increases in costs like utilities and other expenses,’ said Dr Agrawal.

He also suggested moving the ARRS and PCN funding into the core practice funding so that ‘practices are individually able to utilise that funding to recruit whatever roles they feel is necessary for themselves and the patients’.

Last week, clinical directors called on the next government to make PCNs permanent, with more long term funding prioritised.

The State of Primary Care survey ran between 29 April and 20 May 2024 across Cogora titles Pulse PCN, Pulse, Healthcare Leader, Management in Practice, The Pharmacist and Nursing in Practice. It had 1,795 respondents across primary care. It will inform a report due out next month.