General Practice Forward View: a new charter for general practice?

Abstract

The publication of NHS England’s General Practice Forward View (GPFV)1 is one of the most important events for general practice since the GP Charter of 1966. By 2020–2021, recurrent funding for general practice is set to increase by an estimated £2.4 billion per year. This increase in funding is coupled with an investment of £500 million in a sustainability and transformation fund. This is ‘real’ money. It is also ‘new’ money and a belated recognition not only of the ‘unprecedented strain’ on general practice and the struggle to keep pace with relentlessly rising demand but also of the value of general practice to both patients and the NHS.2 As Roland and Everington write, ‘If general practice fails, the whole NHS fails’ .3 This initiative is, in large part, the result of the high-profile Put Patients First: Back General Practice4 lobbying campaign by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and a general consensus that general practice is in crisis. In 2014 Deloitte estimated that, taking into account inflation and increasing demand, the shortfall in GP funding would be approximately £3.36 billion by 2017–2018 if the problems of general practice were not addressed; and this was before the new models of care were introduced to shift work from the hospitals to general practice.5 The proportion of NHS funding for general practice was approximately 11% in 2006, a figure that had fallen to 7.9% by 2015. This increase in funding goes some way towards restoring that proportion of total NHS funding allocated to general practice, with ‘over 10%’ promised by 2020. It is a remarkable achievement that, at a time when NHS funding is severely constrained and required to find £22 billion in efficiency savings, general practice will receive a 14% real-terms increase. GPFV should make a …