Source · Select Committees · Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 10
10
Deferred
Paragraph: 49
Need to explore ARRS uplift for non-staff costs and weighted salaries.
Conclusion
The Government and NHS England should explore the possibility of providing an uplift to the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme to support non-staff costs such as supervision and training or to provide weighted salaries in areas where the cost of living is high or it is hard to recruit. Consideration should also be given to allowing staff to be employed on Agenda for Change terms and conditions as soon as resourcing allows.
Government Response Summary
The government's response discusses ongoing work and future plans for improving primary care IT systems, digital consultation tools, and cloud-based telephony, which bears no relation to the recommendation regarding Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) uplift or Agenda for Change terms.
Paragraph Reference:
49
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
Partially accept. The Department partially accepts this recommendation. We appreciate the impact on clinicians and patients that effective primary care IT systems can have. As set out in the Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care, NHS England will fund high-quality digital consultation, booking and appointment management tools whilst providing support to practices to adopt high-quality cloud-based telephony systems. This will simplify the routes for online access and support combined workflow for all patient requests, so the whole practice team can contribute to rapid assessment and response. NHS England’s Transformation Directorate operates an established digital primary care service which continues to deliver on the commitments set out in the NHS Long Term Plan and Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care, to drive digital and technology transformation in general practice. The digital primary care model continues to create new frameworks for digital suppliers so they can offer their platforms to Primary Care Networks on standard NHS terms, mandate and enforce technology standards to ensure interoperability of data and digital systems, and grow a supportive health IT industry environment for digital developers. NHS England has development work ongoing, looking to improve the quality of general practice IT systems, and recently launched their new Tech Innovation Framework that will support systems suppliers to deliver innovative cloud based technological solutions to the general practice market place. The NHS Primary Care Test Lab also provides a new way for the design and functionality of GP IT solutions to be tested by clinicians and practice teams.