PCN leaders call on new Government for ‘sustainable recurrent funding’

Clinical directors set out what they want to see from the new Government following Labour’s landslide election victory last week.

The Pulse PCN advisory board of clinical directors has called on the new health secretary Wes Streeting for sustainable funding, support to tackle population health and resource for estate challenges.

Dr Geetha Chandrasekaran, CD at North Halifax PCN, West Yorkshire, called for recurrent funding that is ‘sustainable and long-term’ and said that PCNs ‘should be legal entities’.

She also called for flexibility in how the Network DES funding is used and more resource for estates.

Dr Jeremy Carter, CD at Herne Bay PCN, Kent, called for stability and a long-term approach where ‘expectations are not changed every year’.

He adds that the new Government should ‘enable the conditions to allow PCNs to further develop local services, including moving care into the community, to meet population health demand’. He also said that the workforce and estates challenge must be addressed.

Dr Sarit Ghosh, CD at Enfield Unity PCN, London, agreed saying, ‘There should be more levers to enable the transfer of resources to PCNs and practices to deliver more care in the community as well as tackle the prevention agenda’. Dr Ghosh also highlights the need for sustainable funding and infrastructure support particularly around workforce, digital and estates.

Dr Laura Mount, CD at Central and West Warrington PCN, Cheshire, asks the new team to ‘listen to clinical leaders and trust primary care, ensure sustainable recurrent funding and to focus on quality holistic care and not poor quality volume’. 

The new health secretary, Wes Streeting, ‘committed to reversing’ the underfunding of general practice, during his first official visit in the role to Abbey Medical Centre in St John’s Wood, London, with NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard yesterday.

The health secretary said: ‘Patients are finding it harder than ever to see a GP. Patients can’t get through the front door of the NHS, so they aren’t getting the timely care they need.

‘That’s no surprise, when GPs and primary care has been receiving a smaller proportion of NHS resources. I’m committed to reversing that.’

The health secretary also said he is ‘determined to make the NHS more of a neighbourhood health service’, because if patients cannot access their GP, they ‘end up in A&E’ which is more expensive and worse for patients. 

‘My first visit as health secretary was to a GP practice because when we said we want to shift the focus of the NHS out of hospitals and into the community, we meant it,’ Mr Streeting added.

Ms Pritchard said GPs and their teams ‘are the bedrock of the NHS’ but they are ‘under huge pressure’ to deliver. 

‘We know there is much more work to do to support them and to transform primary care services. We look forward to working with the government and colleagues in primary care to do that,’ she added. 

Dr Mount, said: ‘I am pleased that the new health secretary has already signalled his understanding of the importance of good quality primary care as the bedrock of a functional NHS and healthy nation. 

‘I welcome the initial commitments to continuity, the pledge to support people to stay well and investment in care closer to peoples homes. I hope that Mr Streeting continues to listen to front line clinical leaders, including clinical directors, who know what needs to happen and hold the key to ensuring this transformation occurs in an effective manner.’

Labour’s election manifesto carried no promises of increased investment in general practice, but in his previous shadow health secretary role, Mr Streeting had claimed that GPs have ‘a lot to look forward to’ under a Labour Government.

There were also suggestions that primary care’s proportion of the NHS budget ‘ought to increase’ and Labour would seek to do this ‘over time’.