PCN funding remains flat for 2024/25

Funding for PCNs is to remain flat this year, according to the new network DES contract documents.

PCNs will receive £2.916 per patient of core funding, which now includes clinical director payments and PCN leadership management payments, after they were rolled into the core funding figure for 2024/25.

This compares to £2.913 per patient for the combined equivalent payments last year (see box).

Within this core figure, £2.218 will be multiplied by PCN registered list size as of January 2024, and £0.698 multiplied by adjusted population.

Alongside the core funding, PCNs are also eligible for £7.674 in enhanced access payments for the period 1 April 2024 until 31 March 2025. This compares to £7.578 in 2023/24.

Capacity and access payments have increased from £2.795 in 2023/24 to £3.248 in 2024/25, following the reallocation of IIF funding. Meanwhile, the maximum PCN allocation for the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) has gone from £22.671, to be multiplied by the PCN contractor weighted population, to £22.894.

Dr Manu Agrawal, clinical director at Cannock North PCN, said the DES was ‘disappointing’.

He said: ‘There was no uplift in PCN funding, which has been the case for five years, so we’re now out of pocket by about 20% when you take inflation into account. And the enhanced access payments have stayed the same, which just means the money buys you less and clinicians are working for less.’

He added that he had hoped for more flexibility for practice funding.

‘It was definitely a missed opportunity to appreciate general practice by allowing individual practices to utilise ARRS funding to employ what the patients need and have been asking for i.e. GPs and nurses,’ he said.  

Aruna Garcea, chair of the NHS Confederation’s Primary Care Network, said she was ‘dismayed’ at the ‘disappointingly low funding uplift’.

She said: ‘It will severely impact on the ability to sustain current service delivery as well as the workforce and their ability to work with partners at neighbourhood and system level. This will risk realising the benefits of PCNs and at-scale services which is leaving some members frustrated.’

However, she welcomed measures within the contract that encouraged collaboration.

‘Not only does this align with the recommendations of the Fuller stocktake but is something we have been calling for over the last four years,’ she added.

The previous eight PCN service specifications were rolled into one under the new contract, in order to improve outcomes by ‘simplifying’ the service requirements.

The DES service specifications now detail that a PCN must deliver four key functions and confirms their role as ‘part of’ an integrated neighbourhood team.

If a practice wishes to sign up to, or opt out of, the DES, it must do so by 30 April 2024.