General Practitioner Workforce in Alternative Settings July 2019 - September 2019, Experimental Statistics

GP data for this release was provided by CCGs as an additional section within the quarterly General Practice Forward View (GPFV) monitoring survey[1].

CCGs were asked to provide these GP commissioned hours by five specific settings and definitions and guidance were provided.

• Extended Access (which may be commissioned from a general practice rather than another organisation)
• Out-of-Hours (OOH), CCG commissioned
• 111 / Integrated Urgent Care (IUC)
• Type 1/2 GP Streaming in Accident and Emergency Departments
• Urgent Treatment Centres (UTC) / Minor Injury Units (MIU) / Type 3/4 GP Streaming

Two additional categories were also provided as part of the collection for use when the very complicated commissioning arrangements meant that the GP hours could not be allocated to any other category, or where the setting was not known.

• Other
• Unknown

For example, a CCG commissioning Extended Access, Out-of-Hours and an acute visiting service may record all commissioned hours against the Other category where they could not split the activity by setting type.

This is the second time information on GPs in alternative settings has been collected using this survey and additional guidance and supporting material were produced. Several changes were made to the collection in an attempt to improve the data quality in response to the free-text comments received via the first collection:

• Three columns were included to enable CCGs to provide more information about how provision is commissioned from each named provider. CCGs were asked to enter “Y” in whichever columns were relevant to flag how their provision is commissioned.
  • Providers are commissioned to deliver a service but the details are not specified within the contract. As a result, the level of GP involvement – if any – cannot be determined.
  • Details of commissioned hours were not available but actual or rota’d hours may have been collected from one or more of the CCG’s providers.
  • Details of commissioned hours were not available but an estimate was entered.
     
• Each CCG’s collection template was pre-populated with the names of any providers identified the first time this collection was undertaken in order to reduce burden on CCGs and make it easier for them to complete this part of the survey.
  CCGs were asked to provide commissioned GP hours for these providers, leaving fields blank if none, and to provide details of the names and commissioned GP hours for any new suppliers.
   
• To understand how and where cross-CCG commissioning was taking place, we asked CCGs to provide details where another CCG commissions services on their behalf.
  For each type of provision, (excluding Other and Unknown), CCGs were asked to name, if applicable, the CCG that commissions services on their behalf.
  For example, CCG A may record that 111 services were commissioned on their behalf by CCG B and Out-of-Hours provision by CCG C.
   
• We also asked CCGs to identify any CCGs for whom they commissioned services and to specify which settings this commissioning activity covered.
  For example, CCG B may tell us it commissioned 111 services for CCGs A and D.
  We also asked CCGs to identify situations where provision was commissioned jointly.