Source · Select Committees · Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 32
32
Accepted
Paragraph: 111
Need for Integrated Care Systems to simplify patient interface and improve first-contact access.
Recommendation
Integrated Care Systems should prioritise simplifying the patient interface with the NHS by improving access, triage and referral across first-contact NHS organisations including general practice.
Government Response Summary
The government accepts, stating it is a priority for ICSs and outlining initiatives like the Modern General Practice Access approach to improve patient navigation, triage, and access, alongside work on digital services and communication standardization.
Paragraph Reference:
111
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
Accept. The Department accepts this recommendation and agrees that this should be a priority for Integrated Care Systems. NHS England have already issued a framework to support conversations between Integrated Care System teams and GP practices or Primary Care Networks, to assess where additional support may be required to improve patient access. The ways patients can access general practice has changed, with increased use of triage to prioritise care appropriately, and remote consultations. It is important that patients are supported to access and navigate general practice services, and are not dissuaded from seeking care. The Modern General Practice Access approach from the Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care puts an emphasis on better navigating patients and assessing the clinical need of all patients. Clinically urgent requests should be assessed on the same day, and when the request is not urgent, an appointment, if needed, should be scheduled within two weeks. NHS England has begun commercial work to support the rationalisation of patient-facing digital services for general practice, as well as on user research and guidance to support improvements to general practice websites and online consultation systems. NHS England also has started work to increase standardisation of language and communications to use with patients to help simplify their experience when making contact with general practice services.