Agenda item

This report provides an update on the General Practice Development Plan. This report is accompanied by a presentation, of which is attached at appendix A to the report.

Discussion:

The Director of Primary and Community (Out of Hospital) Care and the Deputy Chief Medical Officer at NHS Kent and Medway delivered a presentation that provided an update on the improvements being made and the next steps.

The Board was informed that there were three areas of care to focus on going forward which were access to care, improvement to care and prevention.

It was important to empower patients to make the right decisions for themselves regarding their care using the right tools.

Members made the following comments:

• Officers were thanked for all the work accomplished on the GP Task Group Review.
• It would be beneficial to link the strategies in place in relation to public transport to those of the services for patients.
• Funding and costs of lost opportunities in redirection of patients onto the correct pathway the at point of contact must be given further careful consideration.
• The use of digital accessibility tools to continue to be pushed to encourage the older generation to consider other pathways to care that was not limited to a GP appointment.
• The expansion of pharmacy services was welcomed, and it would be beneficial for it to be expanded further over time.
• It was important to be mindful of the pressures that primary care services were under
• It was noted that there had been 50000 ‘no show’ for appointments which amounted to approximately 5% of appointments. The officer said there were various reasons why some people just did not turn up for their appointments, some may be due to a lack of knowledge of different means to cancel that were not limited to a phone call to the provider.

Discussions took place on how to improve public confidence in access to care and the Board was informed that effective communication was key to promoting different routes to access care and it was important to continue sharing different models of access. There was a national programme in place to increase the use of the NHS App to book appointments and order prescriptions.

Skilled worker scheme- assurance was sought that GPs on the scheme received high levels of support with their transition. The Board was informed that one of the biggest challenges for GPs, on a training scheme, was the inability to obtain a Visa to remain where they were when their training ended, and this resulted in many having to move on to other areas. The benefit of the scheme was that once training ended, GPs were able to remain and work in the area that their training took place. An evaluation was currently taking place on the attraction package and what had and had not worked well. The materials used for the scheme was available and accessible for all Practices to utilise as part of their recruitment process. There was also an opportunity for the scheme to be expanded, in time, to other areas such as dentistry.

In response to questions on what support was offered to failing practices, the Board was informed that support was offered through the GP Improvement Programme on various areas including quality, and recruitment and this support was ongoing. Support would also be offered in instances of Care Quality Commission highlighted areas of recommendations for improvement. It was however important to be mindful that some practices were not able to progress as quickly as others.

It was commented that that some Practices had expressed that one of the issues faced was due to their estate, as when their workforce was expanded there was usually inadequate space for the expansion. There were also issues with financial uncertainty due to issues with funding amidst a rise in practice running costs. Officers advised the Board that a report was to be presented at a future meeting of Health and Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Medway and Swale HCP and Estate which would propose ways on how to overcome some of the obstacles and issues with estates.

The Board was informed that almost 1 million patents were seen in Medway and Kent every month which was almost half the population.  Whilst availability of appointments had been improved with the same number of GPs in place, it was time to explore what changes could be made to improve services, as the current model no longer aligned with the growth and needs of the community.

Decision:

The Board agree that:

1. That a future report be brought to the Board on Pharmacy Services.

2. Consideration be given to further opportunities available in terms of redirection of support for patients.

3. That further exploration of the proposals being put forward to address issues with estates be investigated by the Board as this was an area of concern.

4. Members of the Board were asked to identify opportunities to promote the NHS App in their own organisations.