More funding for flexible GP staff pools

NHS England has announced further funding for local health systems to continue developing pools of GPs working flexibly, to help provide practices with access to temporary staff.

Each local system is to receive a further £120,000 to support the development and running of a flexible GP staff pool, according to updated guidance. Where a pool already exists, ICSs can use the new allocation to expand their existing resource, for example with keep in touch days, or contact and support for returning GPs.

NHS England said in a bulletin to primary care that ‘the pools support opportunities for GPs who want to work flexibly, and in turn systems and PCNs benefit from having a knowledgeable pool of GPs who can be deployed where the need is greatest’. 

The flexible staffing pools can also make use of the £120m Covid Capacity Extension Fund that is available to ICSs until September.

As with last year, the pools can be used to support employment of GPs on a flexible (possibly part-time) fixed-term basis, or to link flexible sessional GPs to practice need.

The funding can be used to pay for the admin costs of running the pools and/or to procure a digital system such as an app to match and deploy GPs to shifts.

The full revised guidance is available here.