NHS England has reassured GP practices and additional roles reimbursement scheme (ARRS) staff that the future of primary care networks (PCNs) is ‘secure’ for the next financial year.
The commissioner clarified this during a webinar for GPs last week, after being told that some practices have had ARRS staff resigning because of ‘uncertainty’ about the future of PCNs.
It comes after the government announced an expansion of the ARRS scheme to include newly-qualified GPs, and as practice nurses look set to be added to the scheme under the next GP contract.
It had already announced that funding for GPs hired via ARRS would continue beyond March, but has not given details.
One GP attending the webinar asked NHS England: ‘Is there any confirmation coming out about the future of PCNs for 2025/26? Many ARRS staff are very worried about their jobs beyond March 2025.’
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Another GP said: ‘Good to hear about GPs in ARRS, although some detail would be helpful.
‘But we need to know about the other ARRS roles as we have staff leaving because of the uncertainty about the future of PCNs until the new DES [Network Contract of Directed Enhanced Service] is published or announced.’
NHS England responded: ‘The future of PCNs is secure for 25/26 with additional funding being implemented through ARRS.’
NHS England’s group director for primary care Alex Morton said that this ‘should give some assurance’ to practices around ARRS staff.
‘Ordinarily, we would recognise ARRS staff as kind of part of the operating budget of PCNs, and take that into account in budget setting,’ she added.
NHS England was also told during the webinar that there are practices ‘struggling’ to find GPs who will ‘accept a salary within ARRS level funding’, particularly within London.
The government announced over the summer that GPs would be added to the ARRS in a bid to hire 1,000 more doctors, as an ’emergency measure’ to tackle GP unemployment in 2024/25.
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NHS England guidance later revealed that only GPs who had qualified in the last two years would be eligible for the scheme, and that the £82m allocated for GPs must used separately to the main ARRS funding pot.
But the British Medical Association (BMA) has since criticised this policy, saying the amount of funding made available for PCNs to pay ARRS GPs is ‘derisory’ and ‘uncompetitive’.
And according to the Royal College of GPs, only just over 300 newly-qualified GPs had taken up posts under the scheme as of last month.
However, NHS England reiterated during the webinar that practices are ‘encouraged’ to make ‘full use’ of the funding available to recruit.
Ms Morton said: ‘I wanted particularly to encourage colleagues, now that there is absolute confirmation that recently qualified GPs employed by the ARRS scheme will continue to be supported next year, I wanted to really encourage people to really take the opportunity to make those appointments.’
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The health secretary previously clarified that funding to hire GPs via ARRS ‘will continue beyond March’ next year, but the BMA added that despite this there needs to be an ‘appropriately funded’ transition period when the scheme will eventually end.
The BMA has also recommended that GPs employed under the scheme should only work across a ‘limited’ number of practices within their PCN.
A version of this article was first published by our sister title Pulse
