The Prime Minister has today announced the new £885 million Primary Care Plan, which will make it easier to get GP appointments and other NHS services whilst cutting waiting lists.
The pandemic has had a huge impact on the NHS and our ability to access healthcare, and the new plan will make services more accessible and significantly reduce waiting lists. GPs have been particularly impacted and residents will know that accessing their GP has become more challenging.
Telford MP Lucy Allan has welcomed the new Plan, which contains measures which will free up around 15 million GP appointments over the next two years, delivering a better service for patients.
The Primary Care Plan’s key points are:
- Patients will no longer be asked to call back another day for an appointment and will instead know on the day how their request will be handled. If the need is urgent, you will be assessed the same day and get an appointment that day. Non-urgent appointments will be guaranteed within two weeks.
- Pharmacists will for the first time be able to prescribe a wide range of common medicines so that patients will not be required to first see their GP.
- The NHS app will be expanded to provide more services including booking appointments and repeat prescriptions.
- Funding for 26,000 more primary care professionals (GPs, practice nurses and pharmacists), which will deliver 50 million more appointments by March 2024.
- Where GP involvement is not clinically necessary, the Government will expand direct access and self-referral – for example for eye consultations, hearing aid provision, weight management services, and wheelchair and community equipment services.
Lucy Allan MP said:
Access to GPs is a key issue in Telford and one of the most common things constituents raise with me. I am glad that the Government is listening to the public and making access to GP services a priority.
These much-needed common-sense reforms will make it considerably easier for residents to access GP care and prescriptions going forwards.
