As part of its commitment to strengthening general practice and supporting the sustainable transformation of primary care, NHS England has provided funding to support the development of transformative new ways of working ELR CCG invited applications from its six Locality groupings for joint working transformation proposals between practices.
One of the Fed’s significant successes has been supporting our members across the six Localities to develop their Transformation Fund applications and plans.
The practices in each of the six Localities decided to form informal networks and joint working partnership hubs to help address the challenges that they face and developed a range of joint working projects.
All six Localities which we supported had their plans approved by the ELR CCG.
We developed a Project Management structure to assist the Locality teams to implement their plans and have been supporting the implementation of these plans in most cases.
We worked with the CCG to develop reporting templates which will be used as the basis to update the CCG on progress and release the funds to the Localities; attending the quarterly CCG Transformation Fund panels to advise on and review progress and support the release of transformation funds to the localities.
ELR CCG also made funds available to improve and/or transform acute access for patients. Where appropriate, the Hubs are dovetailing their Transformation and Acute Access projects. For example, some Localities are piloting the use of para-medical staff to improve access and this could be sustained by the Acute Access fund if successful.
The key benefits of these transformational projects include;
- Improved acute access for patients offering patients a wider range of services and greater specialization, including physiotherapy and mental health services, which will in turn improve access to GPs for those patients with more complex needs.
- The creation of more attractive, flexible and diverse career, training and employment options and greater flexibility in succession planning.
- The development of working at scale between practices to increase the sustainability of primary care services; streamlining some back office functions and standardising administrative processes.
- Responding to the challenges arising from the Blueprint for General Practice (GP Forward View) and providing closer integration between community and primary healthcare providers.
- Create a more secure platform to develop the Integrated Locality Leadership Teams; bringing together the Locality and Integrated Locality Leadership teams.