GP contract to be overhauled to promote integrated care
Released 11/01/2012
The GMS contract is set to be rewritten in order to encourage GP practices to provide integrated care, the Department of Health has announced
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley stated that he accepted the recommendation but that it would need reconsideration again in the future
The Department of Health has declared that it is to promote integrated care within the NHS as a result of the recommendations made by the NHS Future Forum.
The DH has stated that the NHS Commissioning Board is to take over the responsibility for finding means by which integrated care can be encompassed into the GMS contract in the future.
The report by the independent advisory group found it to be "difficult" for local commissioners within "annual cycles" to judge the value of new commissioning arrangements.
The DH recognised the NHS Future Forum’s recommendation that handling Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) “multi-year” settlement budgets would allow GP commissioners more stability to commission integrated care.
However, the DH added that due to the amount of change currently taking place in the NHS, this would be better considered once “new organisational structures have settled in”.
The DH report states: “We welcome the recommendation that the board should promote integrative approaches to out-of-hospital care and that the board should explore how to incentivise integrated care in general medical services contract negotiations.
“One option the board may wish to consider in due course would be indicative multi-year settlements that could be confirmed, and altered if needs be, year-on-year. This is the current approach for local government,” it stated.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley also stated that he accepted the recommendation but that it would need reconsideration again in the future.
"We support the Forum's recommendation regarding financial certainty for CCGs,” he said. "Providing greater planning certainty over future budgets is right in principle but providing future year certainty requires the new organisational budgets to have settled in. So, while right in principle, multi-year settlements need to be considered again as that happens.”
The NHS Future Forum also recommended that healthcare professionals should “make every contact count” to promote health and lifestyle advice at every opportunity when interacting with patients.
It stated: “The Government agrees that it should be the role of all healthcare workers in the NHS to make use of those contacts wherever appropriate, with the aim of improving the public's health and wellbeing and reducing health inequalities.”
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