Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he plans for NHS England to publish its plans for allocation of the £326,000 of funding from the General Practice Forward View to be spent in the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Sustainability and Transformation Plan.

In line with the General Practice Forward View, NHS England will be providing £326,000 of “resilience funding” to help general practitioner (GP) practices in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire tackle rising pressure and workload.

This funding is being delegated to Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) which have added an additional £200,000 of funding to enable the 18 clusters of GP practices to work together to develop a resilience plan tailored to the local area. The funding is being used for a BNSSG wide initiative which includes reducing use of locum staff, establishing flexible working and running a joint recruitment campaign.

Practices facing particular challenges will also be offered close support from neighbouring practice managers and clinical staff. The funding allocation was agreed by NHS England South (South West) Directors in August last year and notified to all local GP practices by CCGs and Sustainability and Transformation Plan leaders. NHS England is currently transferring the funding to the CCGs under a Memorandum of Understanding.