NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG has agreed to cut nearly a third of its general practice budget despite national requirements to invest additional resources in primary care networks (PCNs).
The CCG’s board papers reveal that it has to find £1.5m savings through its local enhanced services (LES) and its quality and efficiency fund (QEF); the QEF incentivises the management of referrals and efficiency in prescribing.
These cuts represent between 25% and 30% of the discretionary budget the CCG spends on general practice, according to the local LMC, which is equivalent to a full-time member of staff for average practices – at a time when all CCGs have been mandated to find extra funding in their core budgets for the newly-formed networks.
Full story in Pulse, 31 July 2019