More GP appointments available due to success of pilot scheme

[Northerner]

An NHS scheme that has enabled GP practices to free up more time for doctors to see their patients is to be extended following a successful pilot.

NHS England said the Time For Care scheme, tried out at certain sites since 2016, should be in place in three-quarters of GP practices by 2022.

The scheme encourages practices to try innovations to cut bureaucracy.

In 2018, 205,157 clinical hours - equivalent to GPs having 1.2 million more appointment slots - were freed up.

NHS England said that represents close to £40m in time saved, as the average cost of an appointment is £30.

The scheme also saved 330,096 administration hours in the past year.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47909618

 

[mikeyB]

That’s interesting, but the numbers are imaginary. The way they’ve worked out the cost of an appointment is by dividing the number of appointments into the GP payment. They then multiply that up by missed or freed up appointments to show the money “saved”. It’s not. The money paid to the GP stays the same. It’s a mathematical trick.

So it’s not money saved, it’s time. And I know that ‘time is money’, but not when the money stays the same whether or not.

The other number quoted, 330,096 admin hours is also fake. You can always spot fake numbers when they are so specific, but that is a multiplication, not a division. It sounds a lot, but isn’t. By my calculation there are around 20,000,000 hours worked by admin staff in GP practices in England. I know that this was just one area, but their figure on admin hours probably only represents about an hour a day.

I don’t doubt for a moment that all this saves time, but it’s not quite the magic bullet that is being presented, and it doesn’t save money, for sure.