Practice Based Commissioning Group and Independent Leads Survey: key findings now available

30/06/2010

This is the third Wave of research for the new Practice Based Commissioning survey, conducted between 4 May and 28 May 2010. The previous PBC GP practice survey (August 2007 – September 2009) asked GP practices for their views of PBC.

For this new survey, lead individuals within PBC groups and independent practices have been invited to take part as they are ideally placed to provide informed feedback as to their organisation’s experience of PBC locally. The aims of the survey are to get feedback from practices on their perception of the support offered by their PCT and on the clinical and financial engagement of practices with PBC.

Key findings

·          Positively, most (86%) leads have a good relationship with their PCT in terms of PBC, as they also did in Waves 1 and 2 (82% and 84%, respectively).

·          PCTs receive mixed ratings for the support they provide. Just under two-thirds of leads (63%) rate the quality of management support as good. Less positively, just three in ten (29%) rate the speed of PCT decision-making for business cases once submitted as good (though this is up 4 percentage points since Wave 1).

·          Three quarters of leads (73%) report receiving a PBC budget from their PCT (compared to 80% in Wave 2 and 84% in Wave 1). Seven in ten (71%) have agreed a PBC commissioning plan with their PCT; this figure is also significantly lower than the Wave 1 and Wave 2 scores (80% and 76%, respectively). The decline in these scores is likely to relate to the timing of the survey at the beginning of the financial year.

·          Leads suggest that they have at least a little involvement in many areas of business. Nine in ten (90%) report that they have at least a little involvement in addressing variation in primary care use of resources or referrals. The business area where leads are least likely to report having any involvement is working with the local authority (only 60% have at least a little involvement). However, reported involvement in this area has risen by 11 percentage points since Wave 1 of the survey (from 49% in Wave 1).

·          Three-quarters of leads (75%) have submitted at least some business cases or service redesign plans to their PCT this financial year, this is significantly down compared with Wave 2 (83%) and Wave 1 (81%). Of these, four in five (79%) have had at least some of these approved and almost two thirds (64%) have had at least some implemented.

·          Six in ten (59%) leads report that PBC has influenced (either a great deal or a fair amount) the clinical practice of the GP practices within their group (up 5 percentage points since Wave 1).

·          Encouragingly, most leads believe that quality of care available to patients has improved at least a little. More than four in five report quality of care has improved at least a little in terms of better access to services (86%), providing a better patient experience (83%) and being more cost effective (81%).

·          797 Group and Independent Leads had been approached of which 483 replied - a response rate of 61%.

See link below for more detail and the full report: