Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings in the Health Foundation report, Doing more for less?, published on 12 December, that (1) primary care network (PCN) funding is currently not sufficient to cover the additional challenges in areas of high deprivation, and (2) the current PCN contract focuses on addressing inequalities within PCNs, but not between PCNs.
Reducing health inequalities in health care is a priority for the National Health Service, and general practice and primary care networks (PCNs) have a major role to play in this.
Practices are paid for delivering essential and additional services based on the size of a practice’s registered list of patients. This funding accounts for patient sex, age, additional needs from a mortality and morbidity perspective, patient list turnover, care home residents and geographic location, including rurality and area costs.
PCNs also receive funding via the Network Contract Direct Enhanced Service, which sets out the requirements of PCNs. One of the core requirements of PCNs is to tackle neighbourhood health inequalities, as detailed in the Tackling Neighbourhood Health Inequalities Supplementary guidance, a copy of which is attached.
NHS England is undertaking a review of the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, and outputs will inform the 2024/25 contract.