Extra 1,000 vulnerable GP practices to receive funding

NHS England has announced that a further 1,000 GP practices are to benefit from its funding to support vulnerable practices by the end of March, in addition to 900 practices that have already been given help.

Dr Arvind Madan, NHS England’s director of primary care, said that 1,000 practices will benefit from the £16 million committed by NHS England this year from its £40 million 'Practice Resilience Programme' announced in the GP Forward View in April.

Speaking at a Westminster Health Forum conference on the future of general practice in London today, Madan added that some 900 practices have already been helped by last year's similar scheme, the £10 million Vulnerable Practices Fund.

Madan highlighted that it was a great tragedy when GPs did not gain access to the fund quickly enough.

Madan explained: “I think it is something like £4.8 million is now spent, with the ambition that the rest of the £10 million in the Vulnerable Practices scheme being spent by the end of this calendar year.

“And the first £16 million of the £40 million Practice Resilience Programme, with similar criteria, starting to affect over 1,000 other practices by the end of this financial year, with further waves of funding to support that in the next three years.”

Responding to GP concerns that ‘transformation’ funding would not reach practices, Madan said: “What we have tried to do in the primary care team is to create some clarity around the financial expectations pointed at primary care in order to deliver the GP Forward View, from
anything that might be a locally funded strand of the opportunity. 

“And what we are saying is 15-20 per cent of the STP fund we are expecting to see pointed to primary care, and that will be one of our assessments of whether we think it passes must.”