National General Practice Improvement Programme (GPIP)

The programme delivered by the NHS provides tailored support for practices and primary care networks (PCNs) over two years (2023 to 2025) to make changes and improvements to how they work.

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This specifically identifies the need for our Toolkit which meets the criteria for:

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Enhancing navigation and triage processes

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The modern general practice model moves away from the 8am phone call queue and ‘first come, first served’ process for allocating appointments.

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Instead, the model requires consistent structured information to be collected at the point of contact – to let the practice know about symptoms, ask a question, make a request or follow up about something – with patients either providing this information via an online form or to reception staff who capture the information about their needs.

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Patient needs can then be consistently assessed and prioritised (triaged), allowing practices to provide patients with the most appropriate care or other response, from the right member of the practice team, including signposting or referring patients to other appropriate services.

The ability to better allocate patients to the right health professional or service supports effective use of all staff time and skills, including staff employed through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS).

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It also supports improved ability and capacity to provide continuity of care for those that would benefit most, including vulnerable patients and those with long-term conditions.

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The use of different consultation modalities, including text or online messages, is also important to facilitate flexible working for staff (which supports retention) and provides a variety of options for patients to receive care and advice in the most effective way depending on their needs.

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Why does general practice need support?

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Demand and complexity in general practice are increasing, and practices are facing a widening gap between patient demand and the capacity available to meet that demand. All practices have pressures and workforce challenges, with these often felt most acutely in practices working in areas of high need and deprivation, and in rural areas.

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A wide range of GP practices across England have innovated in response to these challenges and have created the different elements of a ‘modern general practice model’.

The NHS have collated and codified these and are sharing them more widely to help practices and PCNs make changes more easily and realise the benefits more quickly.

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The modern general practice model

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The Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care commits to supporting practices move to a modern general practice model.

The modern general practice model is a way of organising work in general practice that enables:

• practices to see all patient need, by providing inclusive, straightforward online and telephone access

• practices to understand all need through structured information gathering

• practices to prioritise and allocate need safely and equitably (including continuity of care)

• practices to make best use of other primary care services and the multi-professional team

• practices to improve efficiency of their processes and reduce duplication.

Many practices are already changing the way they work and have seen many benefits from implementing elements of modern general practice including:

• releasing GP and administrative time – 2.5% of GP appointments saved

• use of other primary care services with 450,000 referrals made to community pharmacy with only 6% needing to be referred back to general practice

• improved continuity of care resulting in an estimated 5.2% reduction in consultation numbers

• patient experience scores that are 6 percentage points higher than the national average

• 60% of staff reporting that the number of complaints have reduced

• 70% of staff reporting that their workload is easier to manage.

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Support for practices and primary care networks

The General Practice Improvement Programme (GPIP) helps practices implement modern general practice and realise benefits quickly. The objectives of the improvement programme are to support practices and primary care networks to:

• better align capacity with demand

• improve the working environment

• improve patient experience

• build their capability to sustain improvement

Find out more by registering now for an introductory webinar for practices 

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NHS support

The national General Practice Improvement Programme includes these elements:

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Practice Level Support Offer

The Practice Level Support (PLS) offer is a hands-on package of support delivered over three months (13 weeks). It enables and supports practices to plan and deliver improvements. This support will include facilitated in-person sessions, a data diagnosis and a tailored analysis of demand and capacity.

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Following the initial 13 weeks, there may be the opportunity to opt into some additional support for your practice to help you to continue to make even more progress towards the ambitions laid out in the Primary Care Access Recovery Plan.

Practices will benefit from on-site support as well as group-based learning sessions to facilitate peer to peer learning and sharing of experiences across practices.

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This element of the General Practice Improvement programme provides pragmatic, helpful, hands-on support to practices using experienced and skilled quality improvement facilitators who have worked in and with general practice for many years.