The UK Government’s 10 Year Health Plan for England represents a fundamental change in the way the NHS is run in England.  The BMA is now setting its policy in relation to the Plan and they need your input.   The 10 Year Health Plan was published in early July and can be found here.  A high-level BMA summary of the Plan can be found on the BMA’s website.

Your views on the plan are crucial to inform discussion at a Special Representative Meeting of the BMA being held on 13 September, which will set our policy on the Plan. Share your views in our survey here.

This plan will likely land well with the public promising same day access, genomic profiling and a single patient record while also aspiring for a transition to seamless preventative community-based care and rapid hospital treatment which they can rate with performance linked to hospital payments in an aim to drive up quality.

While it will land well with the public, it has significant potential risks for general practice with the ability of non-general practice organisations to hold the financial budget for populations of 50,000 to 250,000 patients (or more) and deliver services for those patients. We believe this is not a direction of travel that will work and risks a great cost financially, to patient outcomes and to general practice.

While some may see opportunity in the plan, it may fundamentally change how and what general practice delivers, and we must be clear that it can not be permitted to adversely impact our great practices and profession.

We strongly encourage you to read the 11-page executive summary if not the full 168-page summary both found here to learn more and consider how you perceive the risks to you and your practice:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/10-year-health-plan-for-england-fit-for-the-future

The plan has no costings, no mention of increased investment to undertake the transformation and much of it may not come to fruition.  However, we must be prepared and ensure general practice is at the heart driving any change for the benefit of our patients and our practices. Afterall, we know our patients and our communities best, we never operate in deficit, we are agile, and patients want us at the core of their care.

Lincolnshire LMC is already having discussions with local, regional and national organisations as to what general practice needs to do next.  We expect to know more in the next 2 weeks and GPC England will be producing a formal response.