Community Health Partnerships (CHP) has welcomed NHS England’s announcement of a new £1billion Transformation Fund that will be made available to GPs for improvements to their existing surgeries and for investment in new premises.
The £250m-a-year fund, which will be open for bids by GPs every year for the next four years, will be made available to practices that can demonstrate that improvements in their existing buildings will result in increased access to appointments for patients, expanded services, better use of technology and/or a reduction in emergency attendance or admission to hospital among the over-75s.
Any version of a better NHS over the next five years will need stronger GP services, resourced to offer a wider range of services
CHP was set up to support commissioners, clinical commissioning groups, NHS England, GPs and local authorities to plan and utilise their estates more efficiently to drive much-needed savings. It also delivers the NHS LIFT initiative, which acts as a vehicle for improving and developing frontline primary and community care facilities.
Welcoming the increased investment in the healthcare estate, its chairman, John Bacon CB, said: "CHP and our LIFT programme partners look forward to supporting the delivery of this new fund and to ensure that its use has a real impact on GP services and the key priorities as set out in the recent NHS Five Year Forward View report.
"To achieve best value from future investment in primary care - and in particular GP surgeries - will require a serious approach to locality-based strategic estate planning, including planning across organisations in order to deliver integrated, user-focused services that improve people's health and reduce demand on hospitals.
"CHP's dedicated strategic estates planning expertise will help GPs and local commissioners to improve and change the way that key services are delivered, with greater efficiency and to make best use of this fund.”
CHP and our LIFT programme partners look forward to supporting the delivery of this new fund and to ensure that its use has a real impact on GP services
Since 2001, CHP and the LIFT Public Private Partnership Programme has made a significant impact on the quality of the primary and community-based estate, delivering more than 320 schemes all maintained to a high standard for the next 25 years and focused on improving people's health and wellbeing.
The majority of these high-quality buildings are in the UK's most-deprived communities, offering GP services alongside a range of other primary health and community care services.
Simon Stevens, NHS England chief executive, said: “Any version of a better NHS over the next five years will need stronger GP services, resourced to offer a wider range of services.
"That’s why kickstarting an upgrade in primary care infrastructure is no longer a nice-to-have, but is mission-critical.”
