The new primary care contracts are agreed with practices rather than individual GPs.
They will:
- Give GMS practices greater freedom to design their services, including being able to opt out of non-essential services (known as 'enhanced' or 'additional' services) such as out-of-hours provision.
- Give GMS practices the flexibility and incentives to provide more services for patients, including services traditionally provided in hospital. PMS contracts have always offered such incentives.
- Reward practices on the basis of how well they care for patients rather than the number of patients they treat. GMS practices will be assessed on the basis of a new Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) and PMS contractors can choose to adopt the QOF in full or devise a local system.
- Encourage the use of skills of the whole team, but especially nurses, leading to greater career development, more control over workload and more say in decisions about services.
