In May 2023, NHS England and DHSC jointly published their delivery plan for recovering access to primary care, setting out how they intend to tackle the ‘8am rush’ and make it easier and quicker for patients to access primary care services.

Whilst some of our recommendations have been incorporated into the plan, in our view it fails to address the severe inflationary cost pressures all practices currently face. We are also concerned that the continuing cuts to public health funding and the lack of adequate investment in practices and community pharmacies will negate the commitments set out in the plan.

Alongside our initial press statement responding to the plan’s publication, we have also produced this member briefing on the report.

It is the responsibility of the ICB to ensure that providers are fulfilling the expected requirements and to monitor and report to NHS England the progress being made. The template letters provided are to support practices and LMCs to engage with their local ICBs regarding the implementation of the primary secondary care interface elements of the plan.

The first document is a template letter for practices to report to their relevant ICB of any requirements which are not fulfilled by the supplier. The letter also requests the ICB to take the necessary actions to rectify the unfulfilled requirements.

The second document is a template letter for LMCs and local practices to request the relevant ICB to provide:

• their plan to ensure that the expectations are met by all secondary care providers,
• information on how this will be reviewed annually, and
• a method by which local practices and LMCs can report instances where the requirements are not being met.