Press release: NHS Confederation sets key tests for success of GMS contract for PCTs and GP practices
09 Feb 2004
The chair of the NHS Confederation's negotiating team for the GMS contract, Mike Farrar, today has written to PCT Chief Executives in England setting key tests to judge the success of the GMS contract for both PCTs and GP Practices.
The letter had been sent on the back of the final financial allocations received by PCTs. The tests have also been designed to ensure that the GMS contract delivers real benefits to NHS patients, practices and PCTs by fundamentally rethinking how services are developed.
The tests for the GMS contract ask PCTs:
- Are you replacing the out-of-hours service or reforming the emergency care system?
- Are you supporting the effective use of the quality frameworks to manage chronic disease?
- Are you using the enhanced services and the floor to reconfigure services or are you treating them as a cross to bear?
- Are you using patient feedback and the flexibility in the new contract to advance patient choice and to improve the patient experience?
- Are you using the practice-based contracts and new roles of the PCT to develop opportunities around skill mix?
- Are you using the contract as a lever for recruitment and retention and for improving morale?
- Are you using the flexibilities in PMS and PCTMS to tackle specific local issues?
- Are you developing the entrepreneurial culture in primary care?
- Are you using contracts as a lever for modernising services or as a payment mechanism for GPs?
Mike Farrar, Chair of the NHS Confederation negotiating team, said: 'Achieving the above will deliver a renaissance in primary care, a key objective at the heart of the new GMS contract negotiations.'
Mike Farrar also said that the success of the contract will be based on close working relationships: 'The NHS Confederation fully supports the deal as negotiated with the GPC and set out in the contract documentation. We believe that the new contract can only be successful if it is supported by open discussions between PCTs and practices and to this end believe that good relations should be fostered between commissioners and contractors.'
ENDS
Notes for editors
- The NHS Confederation represents the organisations that make up the NHS. Our ordinary members include the majority of NHS trusts, primary care trusts and strategic health authorities in England; trusts and local health boards in Wales; trusts and NHS boards in Scotland; and health and social service trusts and boards in Northern Ireland.
Contact details
- Contact Media Relations Manager Joanna Clason on 020 7074 3306 or 07798 571078 or Senior Media Officer Amy Darlington on 020 7074 3304 or 07767 770309. For out of hours media enquiries, please call the Duty Press Officer on 07880 500726.
Back to media centre