PCNs can claim more for ARRS staff but funding remains flat

PCNs will be able to claim more money for their ARRS staff but the overall budget for the scheme will not be increased, according to a new contract document.

The reimbursable amount for ARRS staff has increased from October 1 this year by between 5.6% to 5.7%, depending on role, which includes employer on costs such as pension and national insurance.

There had previously been a lack of clarity around whether ARRS roles would be included in the 5.5% AfC uplift, with some warning that if the overall ARRS budget was not uplifted, they would be facing shortfalls of between £26k and £60k. 

The new PCN Directed Enhanced Service (DES) document, published yesterday (26 September), outlined that PCNs’ ARRS sum would equate to ‘£22.894 multiplied by the PCN contractor weighted population as at 1 January 2024’.

This is the same figure as in the original 2024/25 DES document, despite the increase in reimbursable amounts.

However, core PCN funding has increased by 0.051p (1.7%) from £2.916 to £2.967 per patient. Enhanced access payments have gone up from £7.674 to £7.975 multiplied by the PCN’s adjusted population, and there has also been an uplift to the care home premium, from £120 per bed to £127.20 per bed. These are all backdated to 1 April 2024.

Capacity and access payments remain unchanged.

The DES also outlined the contractual terms around hiring GPs through ARRS, after the government added the role with a ‘ring fenced’ £82m budget in August as part of an emergency measure. The scheme is intended to fund 1,000 GPs across England’s PCNs, with funding to be made available from October.

PCNs will receive £1.303 multiplied by the PCN contractor weighted population, as of 1 January 2024, for GPs in the ARRS scheme.

The maximum reimbursement PCNs can claim for these GPs, who can be employed from 1 October, is £92,462 across England, except for those hired in London where it is £95,233 – and these amounts include ’employer on-costs for NI and pension’.

It stated PCNs can claim for GPs through the ARRS scheme, except where:

1. GPs have been ‘substantively employed’ as a GP in general practice previously, subject to express agreement with the commissioner,
2. The GP is to be employed in a temporary capacity i.e. locums
3. The GP is beyond the second anniversary of their certificate of completion of training, issued by the General Medical Council, at the start of their employment or engagement.

Clinical directors told Pulse PCN that they were split on how to use the new GP role, with some looking to place the role in a hub and others considering granting one practice an extra GP.