Website of the Department of Health

Primary care contracting

Enabling the NHS to provide a wider range of services closer to where patients live and improve the quality of care provided.

• Primary care contracting

The innovation in Primary Care Contracting programme

Encouraging and supporting innovation from PCTs working with entrepreneurial GPs and other primary care providers.

• The Innovation in Primary Care Contracting programme

GP access and responsiveness

Published: 22 May 2008

The 2007 GP Patient Survey highlighted significant variations between GP practices in levels of patient satisfaction, together with lower satisfaction rates for people from some BME groups.  In response, the Secretary of State announced in July 2007 that he was asking Professor David Colin-Thomé, National Clinical Director for Primary Care, and Professor Mayur Lakhani (former Chair of the RCGP) to lead two reviews into access and responsiveness of primary care services.  In their two reports, Professor Colin-Thomé focuses on the variation in patient satisfaction between practices; and Professor Lakhani looks specifically at the reasons for lower satisfaction among patients from some BME communities.

• Report of the National Improvement Team for Primary Care Access and Responsiveness
• No patient left behind: how can we ensure world class primary care for black and ethnic minority people?
• Report on self reported experience of patients from black and minority ethnic groups

Dentistry and dental services

Supporting the NHS, dental care professions and other stakeholders to maximise oral health, improve NHS dental services and promote high-quality dentistry.

• Dentistry and dental services

Eye care services

Documentation and communications about eye care services policy.

• Eye care services

Urgent care

Case studies and practical advice to help SHAs and PCTs develop integrated urgent care services in their area.

• Urgent care

NHS treatment centres

Offering safe, fast, pre-booked day and short-stay surgery and diagnostic procedures reducing waiting times and improving patient choices.

• Treatment centres

Management of lists of primary care practitioners

The list system is a framework within which independent practitioners are regulated by the NHS, poor performance is addressed and quality is improved.

• Management of lists of primary care practitioners

Practitioners with special interests

Guidance to help PCTs expand the range of local services through the development of staff roles and expansion of physical capacity.

• Practitioners with special interests

Procurement

Equitable access in primary medical care

Procurement framework to support primary care trusts when delivering local procurements.

• Equitable access in primary medical care

Fairness in Primary Care (FPC) procurement: NHS primary medical care and related services

Tackling inequalities in access to primary medical care services in the most under-doctored PCTs in England.

• Fairness in Primary Care (FPC) procurement

NHS Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT)

Developing a new market for investment in primary care and community-based facilities and services.

• NHS Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT)

Investing in primary care

Supporting local initiatives that further the goals of the NHS Plan and rewarding primary care initiatives that achieve locally agreed targets.

• Investing in primary care

Primary care computing

Information on uses of technology in primary care, from the electronic prescriptions pilot scheme to computerised learning and support tools for GPs.

• Primary care computing

Complementary and alternative medicine

Recommendations, research and information on the use of complementary and alternative medicine within the NHS.

• Complementary and alternative medicine