Academics have long written on the particular importance of teamwork in primary care. Not only does it improve outcomes for patients; it’s also about staff morale and, it follows, for retaining talent and skills in our health service. Making sure your people have the relationships, trust, environment and systems to work together as effectively as possible is how all organisations deliver excellent service to customers, create great solutions and continue to innovate.
But sometimes, there comes a challenge so great that it’s working with other organisations, with peers across a sector, which is called for. Making sure our country’s GP surgery buildings are fit for the changes to general practice and care closer to home could be one such task.
With around 40% of practices saying their buildings simply don’t have the space, layout or design needed to offer more services, roll out of the Five Year Forward View continues - with plans for GPs to offer appointments in the evenings and at weekends, to grow the primary care workforce with more clinical pharmacists, physician associates and mental health therapists based in surgeries, and to offer patients a bigger range of services closer to home.
Sustainability and transformation plans across the country echo that direction: more services from primary care, greater access to general practice and a bigger role for GPs and their teams in easing the pressure on A and E.
But with around one-third of all GP surgeries operating from converted residential buildings, where will doctors put extra staff, extra services and extra patients? Can GPs make these changes in the buildings they’re using right now?
Too often, the answer is no – or that it will be slower, and more difficult, than it needs to be. That’s why we’ve come together with our sector colleagues, Octopus Health and Primary Healthcare Properties plc, to show how we can help. Our new Primary Care Buildings Pledge sets out our ability to invest more than £3billion in primary care buildings through third party development during the life of this parliament, at a cost to the NHS of less than £200m of rent per year. That’s the equivalent of around 750 new medical centre buildings, so that GPs have the spaces they need in the right places for patients.
It’s investment that was called for in the recent national review of NHS buildings by Sir Robert Naylor. It’s a first for us; a landmark pledge for our sector. We’re teaming up to make this pledge because we recognise the scale of the problem, and the scale of the solution needed. The Prime Minister pledged during the election that more than £10bn of investment is needed to fix and improve NHS buildings. We’re pledging our part for the GP surgery premises in which most NHS contact with patients takes place.