The criticism came in a joint response to the government’s consultation on its 10-Year Health Plan. Representatives from Community Pharmacy England (CPE), the British Dental Association (BDA), the British Medical Association (BMA), the Optometric Fees Negotiating Committee, and the Association for Primary Care Audiology Providers urged ministers to put primary care “at the heart” of the NHS.
They argued that years of funding cuts and mounting pressures had severely undermined their ability to act as “the backbone of the NHS”.
The submission warned: “NHS England has no primary care strategy or expansion plan. Short-term ‘recovery plans’ and non-strategic bursts of short-term investment have failed.”
Pressure on hospitals
The healthcare bodies also criticised the NHS for prioritising secondary care in its restructuring efforts, saying this had led to “a vicious circle”.
They argued that neglecting primary care meant missed opportunities to prevent illness and keep people out of hospital. This, in turn, placed greater pressure on hospitals, driving up NHS costs and further limiting resources for community services.
The joint submission called for funding to be shifted from hospitals to primary care and pointed to Lord Darzi’s vision of a “neighbourhood NHS” as a model already being delivered. They highlighted the role of 6,300 GP practices, 6,500 NHS dental practices, 10,450 community pharmacies, 6,000 high street opticians and 1,500 primary care audiology centres across England.
The groups said: “This is an immediate policy position that government and the NHS can take. Across primary care, we have a network of neighbourhood healthcare centres, with the skills and ability to go further for patients: we should be supporting and investing in this existing network.”
Call for collaboration
However, they noted that healthcare professionals in primary care often face barriers to collaboration, such as poor data sharing, inadequate systems, and conflicting financial incentives.
The submission echoed Lord Darzi’s recommendations, saying: “We need to develop multi-disciplinary models of care, to allow our members to work together more seamlessly and to foster and reward true collaboration across systems for patients and populations.”
The groups also called for primary care to have a clear investment-linked strategy, with unused budgets returned to the services for which they were intended. Additionally, they argued for greater representation of primary care providers in NHS England’s decision-making structures, including integrated care boards (ICBs). They said these steps were essential to help repair the NHS and ensure primary care could deliver better outcomes for patients.
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