Published 10 March 2020
A total of 17 CCGs have more than £2m remaining funds available between them for practices to potentially access by the end of the financial year, a Pulse Intelligence investigation has found.
The funding is what is left of budget allocations devolved to CCGs by NHS England to support primary care development in 2019/20, including GP Forward View (GPFV) funding streams such as practice receptionist training and GP retention schemes.
The information comes from responses to Freedom of Information requests sent to 191 CCGs. Out of a total of 161 responses, 17 CCGs reported having some remaining funds in NHS England schemes.
Most of the remaining unallocated funds are badged for key GPFV initiatives used to support training for receptionist and clerical staff, adoption of online consultation systems, practice resilience and retention of GP staff.
Examples of CCGs that report remaining funds under these schemes include:
Elsewhere a handful of CCGs also reported having funds left for other GPFV initiatives including the Estates and Technology Transformation Fund (ETTF), the International GP recruitment programme and Extended Access.
These include:
The full list of CCGs with funding available is detailed below and you can see a breakdown of the schemes and available funds for each here.
CCGs told Pulse that practices are encouraged to contact them with ideas for potential projects they could support under available funds – although they may need to do this as part of their primary care network (PCN), federation or other collaborative group.
For example, NHS Hounslow CCG told Pulse Intelligence in a statement: ‘As with all of the training programme schemes, practices can contact the CCGs with suggestions or areas of need and we will judge how best to utilise the funding available. It is worth noting that because there are only small amounts of money available we do not routinely fund individual practices for any schemes.’
Elsewhere, NHS Gloucestershire CCG said: ‘As with all NHSE funding streams of this kind, we are actively communicating with our GP practices and PCNs to ensure that we maximise opportunities to utilise the funding during this period.
‘Practices in our area have a strong track record for innovation and new ways of working and continue to make significant progress in this regard.’
A spokesperson for NHS North Cumbria CCG, which reported remaining GPFV funds overall, not specified by scheme, said: ‘Previous applications already approved include investments as broad as staffing for Frail Elderly Teams, Document Management Systems and Pilot Telemedicine Projects.
‘We are working with our Primary Care Network leaders to support them to determine how to utilise this resource most effectively and those conversations are ongoing.’
NHS Shropshire CCG reported that £87,500 left to support training general practice nurses had been split, so half will be used this financial year for training existing nurses and the rest to support newly qualified nurses in 2020/21 – with practices invited to request access to this funding ‘over the next few weeks’.
In a statement Shropshire CCG said: ‘Given that the CCG’s member practices do not have significant numbers of newly qualified nurses, NHSE/I have agreed to the CCG’s plans to use over half of this funding in the 2019/20 financial year on leadership training for existing general practice nurses.
‘The remaining funding will be used next financial year to support the recruitment of newly-qualified general practice nurses from July/August onwards, with practices asked to submit expressions of interest over the next few weeks.’
While CCGs may flag up these kinds of funding opportunities to their member practices, local GP leaders say practices should consider making a habit of contacting their CCGs to check for any uncommitted funds.
Dr Dean Eggitt, GP partner in south Yorkshire and medical secretary at Doncaster LMC, said: ‘It is worth making a habit of contacting your CCG in the early new year to ask if there is any available underspend to apply for.’
Dr Eggitt provides some tips on making a last-minute bid for end-of-year funding, for practices and federations looking to resource a project.
Pulse Intelligence also has a series of guides on how to go about securing funding from GPFV schemes such as the online consultation development programme, the practice resilience fund, the ETTF scheme and the international GP recruitment programme (see below).
CCGs with remaining 2019/20 funds to support NHS England schemes
NB A small number of CCGs may not have had the opportunity to respond – practices from the following CCGs may find their CCG not listed above also has some unallocated 2019/20 funds: NHS Bolton; Bury; Chorley and South Ribble; Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale; Manchester; Newcastle and Gateshead; Oldham; and Vale of York.
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