Fixing the working relationship with primary care is one the key priorities for secondary care providers, who must not rely on GPs to do so, NHS England’s chief executive has said.
Addressing the NHS Providers conference in Liverpool last week, Amanda Pritchard went as far as listing this as one of five key priorities for secondary care managers.
The other priorities were living within their financial means and making resources go as far as possible; embedding continuous improvement into strategies; maintaining quality and safety; and making the most of opportunities flowing from ability to act as ‘one NHS‘, such as the Federated Data Platform.
According to Ms Pritchard, realisation of the Government’s ‘neighbourhood health service’ plan will rely on improving the interface between primary and secondary care. Speaking to a room full of NHS managers, she noted that ‘frustrations can run both ways’ but warned that ‘relying on GPs to solve it won’t work and it’s not fair’.
Ms Pritchard said: ‘We have to make this work better for all parties, because it’s patients who suffer when it doesn’t. So we’re working on this centrally; looking particularly at streamlining referrals. But it’s about much more than that.
‘Patients unable to get information from hospitals, pushing them to GPs. Clinics asking GPs to refer to other clinics, to chase test results ordered by the clinic.’
She called on all providers to ‘commit to this now’ and said this is ‘particularly important as a first step to make integrated neighbourhood teams and neighbourhood services work’, as they rely on ‘well-functioning’ relationships.
Speaking at the same conference, health secretary Wes Streeting said realising the new neighbourhood health service should be the key focus of integrated care boards (ICBs) going forward.
His speech focused on a number of reforms focused on provider performance, including trust league tables, but he also said ICBs would be measured on their ability to deliver neighbourhood services.
Suggesting ICBs are unclear on their ‘purpose’, he said: ‘I want ICBs to focus on their job as strategic commissioners and be responsible for one big thing: the development of a new Neighbourhood Health Service.
‘It will focus on building up community and primary care services with the explicit aim of keeping patients healthy and out of hospital, with care closer to home and in the home.’
Those ICBs making the most progress towards this goal should ‘enjoy greater freedom and flexibility’, the health secretary said.
Earlier this year, a survey run by Hospital Healthcare Europe and its sister titles revealed that the primary-secondary care interface is not effective at ensuring efficient continuity of patient care between settings.
In June, NHS England asked integrated care boards (ICBs) to act as ‘referees’ to resolve ‘tension’ between primary and secondary care around workload and referrals.
And in April, hospital Trusts were informed by NHS England of a requirement to have ‘a designated lead for the primary-secondary care interface’ and ICBs were tasked with regularly reviewing this progress.
A version of this article was originally published by our sister publication Pulse.
