Further to NHS England's letter to GPs on 27 March 2020 regarding preparedness for coronavirus (COVID-19) in general practice, new legislation was passed on 1 April 2020 to incorporate changes to the GMS Contracts/ PMS Agreements Regulations to reflect the requirements of the current crisis. A summary of these changes and further detail on the specific application of these changes has been provided by NHS England in their letter dated 14 April 2020.
These changes include:
- allowing the commissioner to suspend specific terms during a pandemic. NHS England's letter of 14 April 2020 includes an annex setting out the specific terms practices can consider suspending if they need to free up capacity which include:
- new patient reviews (including alcohol dependency)
- over-75 health checks
- annual patient reviews, including under QOF
- routine medication reviews
- clinical reviews of frailty
- friends and Family Test (FFT)
- engagement with and review of feedback from Patient Participation Groups (PPG)
- dispensing list cleansing
- temporarily amending the definition of 'core hours' so that it may include Good Friday and Easter Monday and May bank holidays.
- increasing the minimum number of appointments that practices must make available for 111 direct booking (from the 14 April until 30 June 2020, all practices in England must make available a minimum of 1 appointment per 500 patients for direct booking from 111.
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If you need any advice or assistance with respect to these changes please do not hesitate to contact a member of our Healthcare Law team, or complete the form below.