Plans for local access to primary care – seven days a week across Greater Manchester, with ambitions to boost social care to help with hospital discharge have been announced.
By end of this year everyone living in Greater Manchester who needs medical help will have same-day access to primary care services, supported by diagnostic tests, seven days a week
Increasing coverage across Greater Manchester aims to help 2m people not already covered by a seven-day scheme.
The plans, which will be outlined at the GM Primary Care Summit this afternoon, are all part of a transformation programme in primary care across the region.
They are also the first milestones after the region’s historic devolution of health and care announcement in February involving NHS England, 12 NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), 15 NHS providers and 10 local authorities.
Ian Williamson, Chief Officer for Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Devolution, said: “We now have a tremendous opportunity to build on established good practice and learning in Greater Manchester, so that we can close the health inequalities gap between our region and the rest of the UK. Devolution hasn’t created these new seven-day systems of working – but it can help to propel those results quicker across Greater Manchester, through a cemented regional partnership, increased freedoms and flexibilities to make local decisions – and less bureaucratic impediments.”
The announcement also follows independent evaluation, which is published today, of the Greater Manchester ‘Demonstrator’ or pilot sites across the region, which tested new ways of working in primary care.
Conference delegates will also hear the impact of the Greater Manchester Demonstrator sites which all trialled seven-day access in Manchester, Bury, Heywood and Middleton.
Research shows that the overall effect of these Demonstrators led to a reduction of 3% in total A&E activity compared with the rest of Greater Manchester.
Sir Howard Bernstein, Joint chair of the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Devolution Programme Board, said: “Seven-day access has the potential to transform health outcomes for the region – and it’s also part of wider measures to help take the pressure off hospitals.
Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England, said: “This welcome ambition shows how devolution can produce world gains for patients right across Greater Manchester.”
Seven-day access also builds on the foundations of pioneering work across the region to improve standards within primary care and a joined up approach to physical, mental and social care. Within Greater Manchester there are nine quality standards of care, which CCGs have agreed to and will now implement in their own areas
