London Workforce

The transforming primary care team is supporting and delivering work to strengthen the primary care workforce, increase the numbers of health professionals in general practice and support new ways of working and delivering care.

Working with partners, we aim to:

Increase the number of doctors in general practice by:

  • Increasing uptake of GP trainees into substantive roles
  • Retaining our GPs
  • Supporting GPs who want to return to practice
  • Recruiting international GPs

Increase the number of other health professionals in general practice and changing models of care by:

  • Recruiting clinical pharmacists into general practice
  • Increasing the number of mental health therapists
  • Increasing the number of physician associates
  • Strengthen the general practice nursing workforce
  • Supporting the system to use other roles such as link workersphysiotherapists and paramedics can contribute to a new MDT workforce
  • Accelerating MDT working beyond general practices
  • Supporting new ways of working including more collaboration, use of new technology and personalization of care

We are also establishing a workforce framework which will sit alongside the next steps document which sets out a vision for the future of the London health and social care workforce, along with a framework of how to achieve this vision at regional and local level.

As well as supporting the delivery of planning guidance, the Long Term Plan and contract requirements, the focus of work is on:

  • Facilitating the development of STP GP recruitment and retention plans (building on learning from 2018/19 schemes) which will contribute to increasing uptake of GP trainees into substantive roles and increasing the retention of mid/late career GPs
  • Overseeing and supporting the development of STP workforce plans and trajectories and supporting STPs as they take ownership
  • Overseeing the Clinical Pharmacist in general practice programme and supporting PCNs and Federation as they transition to the Additional Roles Reimbursement scheme
  • Supporting the growth of PCNs developing into multidisciplinary teams through the deployment of the wider workforce including social prescribers, clinical pharmacists, PAs, etc
  • Supporting the Director of Nursing, NHSE, to deliver the national GPN 10 point plan and ensure integration with the wider GPFV and LTP workforce programme
  • Overseeing the development of Clinical Leadership opportunities and working with STPs, federations, training hubs, etc. to maximise uptake
  • Overseeing the delivery of the International GP recruitment programme
  • Monitoring delivery of GPFV resilience programmes
  • Supporting regional delivery of GPD programmes – time for care, reception and admin, practice manager training and uptake of high impact actions

 More information:

The Workforce Modelling tool

As we plan to deliver primary care services in a different way, it is critical that we understand the current and future workforce in London. The new (Beta2) g workforce modelling tool has been tested by stakeholders in London to supports this planning:

Addressing a long-standing shortage of GPs across three London boroughs

Recruitment and retention of GPs is a key focus for the Workforce programme in Healthy London Partnership’s Transforming Primary Care team. Along with many other parts of London and the country as a whole, attracting and keeping GPs has been a major issue of concern in three boroughs in London; Barking and Dagenham, Redbridge and Havering (BHR).

In order to help improve the recruitment and retention of GPs in these boroughs in North East London a ground-breaking new scheme has been launched to help boost GP numbers, called SPIN – which stands for Salaried Portfolio Innovation Scheme. The scheme was developed by the BHR CCGs in partnership with Health Education England; Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust; NELFT NHS Foundation Trust; BHR Community Education Provider Network, and Queen Mary University of London.