Taking much of the learning and insight from the Making Time in General Practice report published in October 2015, the General Practice Development Programme (GPDP) was established as part of the GP Forward View. This five year programme aims to respond to the opportunities and challenges identified within the General Practice Forward View (GP Forward View) and building capacity for improvement.

The programme includes:  The HLP Primary Care programme supports the national vision of spreading the best innovations, helping all practices use the 10 High Impact Actions to release capacity, learn from the GP Access Fund and Vanguard sites to support mainstreaming of proven service improvements across all practices, fund local collaboratives to support practices to implement new ways of working, provide free training and coaching for clinicians and managers to support practice redesign and stimulate update of online consultations for every practice.

In turn, this will help practices lay the foundations for new models of integrated care, and play their part in delivering a sustainable and high quality NHS as part of the Sustainability and Transformation Plan process in which general practice has a key role.  The programme includes:

• Releasing time for care. A £30 million programme to help practices release capacity and work together at scale, enable self-care, introduce new technologies, and make best use of the wider workforce, so freeing up GP time and improving access to services. National resources and expertise will help groups of practices plan their own Time for Care programme. This will help you use proven innovations from the 10 High Impact Actions quickly, safely and sustainably. Your programme can be tailored to meet local interests and plans.
• Building capability for improvement. Free training and coaching will be provided for clinicians and managers to grow confidence and skills in using improvement science and leading change. In addition, we will support a new national primary care improvement community, spreading and accelerating innovation, improvement and transformation.
• Training for reception and clerical staff. National investment of £45 million benefiting every practice to support the training of current reception and clerical staff to play a greater role in navigation of patients and handling clinical paperwork to free up GP time. The programme is providing funding via CCGs towards training for receptionists to play a greater role in active signposting and for clerical staff to manage more incoming correspondence. Over the next five years, a typical 10,000 patient practice could receive around £7,500 towards training and back-fill costs.
• Practice manager development. A £6 million investment in practice manager development, alongside access for practice managers to the new national development programme. Working with practice manager leaders, the programme will support networking between managers at a local and national level, to share successful ways of managing workload and provide peer-to-peer encouragement and support.