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Practices' entitlements and PCTs' responsibilities in respect of practice based commissioning in 2007- 08

Model letter to a PCT from the LMC and/or GP practices
May 2007

Background
The latest Department of Health (DH) guidance ‘Practice based commissioning (PBC): Practical Implementation’ published in November 2006 sets out a number of new or reinforced entitlements for practices and responsibilities for primary care trusts (PCTs), of which both parties should be aware. The General Practitioners Committee (GPC) has already produced a detailed analysis of the DH guidance, as well as a shorter ‘key issues’ summary; both documents are available online.

In order for PBC to develop in 2007-08, practices should fully understand the terms of their engagement in the initiative as well as those of PCTs. Not only should practices be well informed, but they should also feel empowered. To date, this has not been the case and although the latest DH guidance appears to try to address this fact, in many areas, an extra push to ensure that PCTs are fully signed up to making PBC work will be necessary. To this end, the GPC has produced the following model letter, which highlights practices entitlements and which those local medical committees (LMCs) and/or GP practices who are concerned that their PCT is not following the national guidelines, may wish to send to their PCT.

Where PCTs are not fulfilling these requirements, LMCs should inform the GPC secretariat, via their usual LMC Liaison Officer. This will enable the GPC to maintain an accurate picture of local implementation of PBC in 2007-08, which will prove useful for communications with the national DH PBC implementation team.