A new drive to improve access to general practice appointments
will be the centrepiece of a Our Plan for Patients that
will be unveiled by the Health and Social Care Secretary and
Deputy Prime Minister tomorrow [Thursday 22 September].
As the first step in her efforts to put the NHS and social care
on a resilient footing, Thérèse Coffey will set out her
expectation that everyone who needs one should get an appointment
at a GP practice within two weeks – and that the patients with
the most urgent needs should be seen within the same day.
The plan will include changing funding rules to recruit extra
support staff so hardworking GPs can focus on treating patients -
freeing up over one million appointments per year, as well as
more state-of-the art telephone systems to make it easier for
patients to get through to their GP surgeries.
There will also be more information available for patients, with
appointments data published at a practice level for the first
time ever.
Pharmacies will help ease pressures on GPs and free up time for
appointments by managing and supplying more medicines such as
contraception without a GP prescription, which could free up to
two million general practice appointments a year, and taking
referrals from emergency care for minor illnesses or symptoms,
such as a cough, headache or sore throat.
As part of Our Plan for Patients, Dr Coffey will also
call on the public to take part in a “national endeavour” to
support the health and social care system, calling on the one
million volunteers who stepped up during the pandemic to support
the NHS to come forward again. This will include a push for more
volunteering across the NHS and social care.
Health and Social Care Secretary and Deputy Prime
Minister Thérèse Coffey is expected to say:
“I will put a laser-like focus on the needs of patients, making
their priorities my priorities and being a champion for them on
the issues that affect them most.
“Our Plan for Patients will make it easier to get a
general practice appointment and we will work tirelessly to
deliver that, alongside supporting our hardworking GP teams.
“We know this winter will be tough and this is just the first
step in our work to bolster our valued NHS and social care
services so people can get the care they need.”
From November, the NHS will accelerate the roll-out of new
cloud-based telephone systems to make it easier for patients to
get through to their general practice, with more phone lines to
take calls from patients and provide information about their
place in the queue, or direct them to the right place for help.
As part of the extra staff to support GPs to focus on seeing
patients, the government will free up funding for practices to
employ more roles, including GP assistants and more advanced
nurse practitioners, in addition to the roles they are already
able to recruit such as pharmacists, mental health practitioners
and nursing associates. This supports the government’s commitment
to deliver 26,000 more primary care staff to help improve access
to appointments.
Our Plan for Patients will build on the NHS winter plan
and set out further detail on how the public will receive the
care they need this winter and next across the Health and Social
Care Secretary’s A, B, C and D priorities - ambulances, backlogs,
care and doctors and dentists.
Notes to Editors:
- Advanced Nurse Practitioners are Registered Nurses who have
done extra training and academic qualifications to be able to
examine, assess, make diagnoses, treat, prescribe and make
referrals for patients.
- The Health and Social Care Secretary will set out further
details of the plan in an oral statement to the House of Commons
later today.
