Summary
Primary care efforts to drive the blueprint are highlighted in a quarterly update to GM board members.
The efforts by primary care to drive the GM Primary Care Blueprint have been praised by the Chief Executive of NHS Greater Manchester.
In a message to the primary care workforce, Mark Fisher thanked everyone who has spent the last few months delivering the plan.
He said a paper presented at the NHS Greater Manchester Board on 17 July had made ‘impressive reading’, and he highlighted achievements in all four primary care disciplines.
The full message reads:
Dear Colleague,
At the NHS Greater Manchester Board meeting this week, we received a paper providing an update of the work to deliver the Greater Manchester Primary Care Blueprint. I wanted to use the opportunity of this newsletter to you all to say the paper made impressive reading and to thank you all of you who have spent the last few months delivering this plan.
General practice appointments continue to increase, GP quality across GM is tracking higher than the national average with the number of practices rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, and the amount of eligible people using the NHS App to book appointments, view medical records and order prescriptions are all on the up.
The important role played by community pharmacists continue to expand with GM ranked the second highest performing integrated care system in the country delivering the national Pharmacy First programme. In the first five months of the year, just shy of 60,000 people have been supported by their community pharmacy to identify those at risk of high blood pressure and signposting them to their GP for help.
Our Community Urgent Eyecare Service is another success with more than 55,000 patients helped with their urgent eye symptoms from over 200 optometry practices, reducing demand on GP and urgent care services where appropriate. The walk-in nature of optometry providers in GM also enables accessible support to be given to vulnerable and at-risk groups, such as through the optometry Easy Eye Care programme for people living with learning disabilities and autism, as well as continuing to offer homeless and asylum seeker services.
And in dentistry, all 340 of GM’s dental practices are signed up to our local or the national dental quality access schemes increasing dental capacity. In just 12 months, the GM Dental Quality Access Scheme alone has delivered over 200,000 additional appointments at a time when we know dental capacity if operating under high pressure.
Added to that were the results of last week’s GP Patient Survey which showed more than two thirds of those who took part said they had a good overall experience contacting their GP practice, with – most importantly – 90% feeling like their needs were met. We have a positive story to tell. Our unified primary care system – the first of its kind for an integrated care system – is driving delivery of this blueprint and I wanted to acknowledge the amount of work happening across the system.
