Almost 90 per cent of the population of the East Midlands is covered by newly formed groups of GP practices who will take the lead on the Government’s plans for modernising the NHS, Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley, has announced.
The fourth wave of pathfinders, which consists of six new groups of GP practices in the East Midlands, are among the next cohort which have been announced nationally to join the expanding list of practices who will trail blaze the NHS reforms two years ahead of the statutory timeframe. This brings the total to 22 groups of GP practices covering nearly all of the East Midlands population, which is in line with the national position where groups of GP practices cover nearly 90 per cent of the whole country.
The groups of practices that are known as pathfinders, will take on commissioning responsibilities as part of the Government’s plans set out in the NHS White Paper Liberating the NHS: Equity and Excellence. The groups of GPs will work together to manage their local budgets and commission services for patients directly with other NHS colleagues and local authorities.
This latest wave of pathfinders will test the new commissioning arrangements to ensure they are working well before arrangements that are more formal come into place. By being in charge of the decisions that affect their patients, the selected pathfinders represent GPs who have demonstrated readiness to start taking on commissioning responsibilities, and start putting in place health services that achieve better health outcomes for their patients.
The additional six GP pathfinders that were announced today are based in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Milton Keynes and already provide healthcare to over one million people in these areas. This increases the amount of the East Midlands population covered by pathfinder arrangements to nearly four million seeing additional clinical leadership, good partnership working with local authorities, and innovative ways of engaging with patients and the local community.
Wendy Saviour, Director of Commissioning Development at NHS East Midlands said:
“It is excellent news that the East Midlands has six more consortia joining with the pathfinder programme, making 22 in total and almost 90 per cent of the population covered. It is very encouraging to see an increasing number of GP practices already demonstrating their readiness to start delivering the NHS modernisation agenda, two years ahead of taking on the statutory responsibilities. It shows a significant enthusiasm to get on with designing and purchasing NHS services, to improve the services, quality and outcomes for patients.”
All pathfinders and prospective pathfinders will continue to receive support from NHS East Midlands and Primary Care Trust clusters in their development to enable as many consortia as possible to test out the new arrangements before GP consortia take on statutory responsibilities from April 2013.
GP pathfinders will also be supported by the National Clinical Commissioning Network, the National Leadership Council and national primary care bodies.
