Plans allowing integrated care boards (ICBs) to request local variations to the network contract DES could bring opportunities and risks for general practice.
That’s the view of DAUK’s GP committee.
It follows a report in GP Online that NHS England has confirmed the DES specification ‘has been updated to enable ICBs to request local variations’.
DAUK GP co-lead Dr Steve Taylor told GP Online it could be an ‘amazing’ opportunity in areas where general practice and their ICB had a strong relationship.
General practice
However, he cautioned that ‘restrictive practices that make things harder for general practice’ could follow in some areas.
Dr Taylor said: “A potential good outcome would be that an ICB could say it needs to fit a service better with a certain locality and decide to increase funding to support that.
“The flip side is they could decide that although the national DES specifies a certain level of funding for something, the ICB feels it can’t afford that so they restrict funding, or try to make practices do more to obtain it.”
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