General Practice Resilience Programme funding

£2.65m of resilience funding is available to London practices this financial year, as the Capital’s share of a £16m national pot, promised as part of the GP Forward View. This is different from the Vulnerable Practice Fund which was available last year.

There are a number of different ways in which this funding could be utilised including:

Diagnostic services to quickly identify areas for improvement support.
Specialist advice and guidance – e.g. operational, HR, IT, management, and finance.
Practice management capacity support.
Rapid intervention and management support for practices at risk of closure.
Coordinated support to help practices struggling with workforce issues.
Change management and improvement support to individual practices or group of practices.

NHS England local teams should be tailoring this menu of support to the assessed needs of practices in local areas. This support is aimed not just at vulnerable practices but for practices nearing the tipping point.

Eligible practices will be identified by local NHS England teams using the methodology and criteria detailed in the December 2015 letter outlining the process of the Vulnerable Practices Programme. The methodology uses CQC ratings but goes beyond these to identify vulnerable GP practices. Local NHS England teams and partners will need to agree on a prioritised list of practices to support based on their assessment of practices using the national criteria. This prioritisation should be made on the basis of local intelligence and judgement as to where the greatest impact can be achieved from the available funding this year.

Bids will be considered against a matrix scoring the impact of support versus the scope for support. Unlike the Vulnerable Practice Fund, selected practices will not be required to contribute match funding, but will need to enter into a memorandum of understanding so that they match commitment. The full NHS England guidance is here.

The project's key milestones are listed as:

19 August 2016: NHS England local teams share proposals for delivering the menu of support with their key partners.
23 September 2016: Local teams confirm to NHS England how they will deliver the 'menu' of support, including a contact for practices, which is published by NHS England.
30 September 2016: Local teams submit a list of practices who they believe need support to NHS England.

Last updated : 16 Aug 2016

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