Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 4
4
Not Addressed
NHS England has overloaded GPs, who have limited capacity, with new and expanding priorities.
Recommendation
NHS England has overloaded GPs, who have limited capacity, with new and expanding priorities. NHSE has prioritised improving patients’ access and digital access to general practice. It recognises that pushing to improve one aspect of care inevitably causes consequences to appear elsewhere, in this case, support for people with frailty.NHSE is looking at interventions that could be done by other healthcare professionals in primary care. For example, NHSE is looking to step up the clinical service provided by community pharmacists including undertaking medication reviews for people with frailty, rather than being just a dispensing service. If this is to be case, community pharmacists must be properly funded to do this work. The Committee is reporting separately on the New Hospital Programme which makes assumptions about the level of work that will be shifted to primary care and which is heavily dependent on more care being delivered in the community. We expect the Department to demonstrate joined-up thinking on capacity and patient flows for primary, community and acute services. recommendation a. NHS England should set out the basis on which it considers GPs and general practice have the capacity to deliver the full ranges of services and responsibilities expected from them. 3 b. Alongside this, NHS England should write to the Committee with details on what they have done to assess of the expected impact of new and expanding priorities on continuity of care for patients with frailty and for digitally excluded patients with frailty. c. NHS England and the Department of Health & Social Care should also set out how neighbourhood health teams will share responsibilities and balance the load of assessing and supporting people with frailty.
Government Response Summary
The government stated it agreed with the recommendation but then provided a response detailing cross-government coordination and governance for net zero delivery, failing to address GP capacity, impact assessments for new priorities, or how neighbourhood health teams will share responsibilities for frailty.
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. ensuring the whole of government works effectively to achieve it. The government has established arrangements for coordinating the main departments including the Domestic and Economic Affairs (Energy, Climate and Net Zero) Committee, chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, responsible for considering matters relating to energy and to the delivery of the UK’s domestic and international climate strategy. Officials in DESNZ work with counterparts across government to coordinate action and manage cross-departmental risks and to ensure net zero is embedded in government policy and decision-making. The setting of common goals is also achieved through Outcome Delivery Plans, and the sector specific public commitments in the recent Net Zero Growth Plan, help to drive accountability for achieving net zero in each leading department. For overall net zero delivery governance, the Net Zero Integrated Review Implementation sub-Group (sub-IRIG) comprises senior officials from across government with responsibility for establishing and implementing a cross-government net zero delivery strategy. The Net Zero Innovation Board (NZIB), chaired by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser with representatives from across government, is responsible for providing coordinated and strategic oversight on net zero R&I programmes and ensuring alignment with government priorities. A set of actions and responsibilities between the Sub-IRIG and NZIB will be agreed to strengthen governance around the end-to-end cross-government progress on net zero technologies. This will include identifying key interdependencies between R&I programmes and wider net zero policy, regulation and investment, and mitigating challenges as they are identified.