The third group of GP practices in the East Midlands who will take the lead in the Government’s plans for modernising the NHS, have been announced by the Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley.
Eight new groups of GP practices in the East Midlands are among the next cohort from across England that have been selected to join the expanding list of practices chosen to trail blaze the reforms two years ahead of the statutory timeframe. This brings the total to 16 groups of GP practices covering two thirds of the East Midlands population, which is in line with the national position where 177 groups of GP practices cover two thirds of the whole country.
The 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 eight GP pathfinders that were announced today are based in all five counties in the East Midlands including Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire and already provide healthcare to over 1.3 million people in these areas. This increases the amount of the East Midlands population covered by pathfinder arrangements to 3 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 eight more consortia joining with the pathfinder programme, making 16 in total. 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 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.
