What's in the latest contract
If you read my posts, a lot of what I’ve been talking about has turned up in the latest contract.
A concentration on CVD as a way to reduce health inequalities and deliver rapid health outcome gains - tick - UCLPartners and others are leading on this. Also see PocDocs POCT testing.
Risk strat’ing patients to ID those that need a care plan/Continuity of Care approach - tick.
Increased pressure to deliver the modernising GP approach to access - tick.
Talk of reducing paperwork - but little detail on the how.
Move towards the direct reimbursement of clinical staff - but without any guidance on activity levels or staffing levels.
What we don’t have is any clarity on how we are going to deliver the integrated teams approach to healthcare. With GPs and the wider primary care teams under separate contracts with separate pots of money - how are they going to deliver together? In fact despite saying they want to deal with PCNs rather than practices - there is actually very little detail on what PCNs role is going to be other than some form of communications channel. they appear to have watered down the idea of peer command and control.
It’s clear despite some new money - the pressure is on - and the workforce is still stressed - I’m not hearing anyone loving this new contract - a lack of hate isn’t the same thing. We still need new ways of working - productivity savings - efficient IT tools. we need to see what things like AI. ML. RPA. AR. POCT. WAS. can really do.
Change management skills and the onboarding of new tech and the maximisation of its benefits is key - so many practices only scratch the surface of tech capabilities.
Do we need new contractual routes? LLPs? LTDs?
There are lots of inequalities in funding - that haven’t been worked out. there are lots of unwarranted variations in service - that needs QI projects.
We are still in interesting times.