Overview
For many years, NHS England has provided an improvement support programme for General Practice.
Today, this programme is known as Practice Level Support and is delivered on behalf of NHS England by five national delivery partners. Collectively they have supported thousands of practices across the country to improve their productivity, efficiency and patient care.
PLS Aims
Practice Level Support is designed to assist practices to improve their efficiency, productivity and overall patient experience – often with a particular focus on patient access.
The programme is delivered by expert facilitators that work directly with practices to implement real and lasting change to benefit the way they operate. Facilitators integrate themselves as an extension of the practice team, putting their improvement at the heart of what they do.
PLS aligns to the Operational Planning Guidance by helping to improve patient access to primary care, improving efficiency and productivity. It can be used to support the implementation of digital tools, gain better data insights and deliver better patient experience.
PLS is a ready-made tried and tested programme that has proven to provide consistent benefits to thousands of practices across England. The focus and design of the programme enables it to provide a direct solution to the 2025/26 national priorities included in the Operational Planning Guidance, to improve patient access to general practice and create greater efficiency and productivity by supporting the implementation of digital tools to gain better data insights and deliver better patient experience. All of which is geared to enabling practices achieve Modern General Practice (MGP).
Supported by NHS England, almost all the administration, tracking and reporting functions are carried out on behalf of the ICB, reducing your workload.
Improves patient access
Proven improvement programme
Flexible approach
Robust outcome reporting
Little admin/time required from ICB
Aligns to Operational Planning Guidance
Designed to focus on the real challenges and issues that are facing practices and PCNs that also align with the priorities of the ICB. Support can be delivered to individual practices or all practices in a PCN, with the opportunity to share and learn through groupbased sessions.
PLS enables practices to solve real-world challenges, improving staff motivation and retention, better matching demand with capacity, enhancing patient access, and ultimately delivering better patient experiences and outcomes.
Focused on key practice challenges
Supports both PCN & Practice improvement
Flexible around practice needs
Will improve practice / PCN performance & access
Helps practices move towards delivering Modern General Practice
Reduction in avoidable appointments
Clinical time released
Admin time released
Increase in online consultation systems use
Reduction in call waiting times
Reduction in abandoned calls
Improved Care Navigation
Improved working environment for staff and improved patient experience
Supporting practices to identify the groups of patients that most require continuity of care and developing practice processes to enable this.
Reducing variation and improving processes in management of Long Term Conditions, e.g. diabetes, hypertension.
Enabling practices to improve the experience for patients of contacting the practice and use appointment capacity effectively.
Improved utilisation of ARRS roles, helping to build competency and effective resource management.
Enhancing the impact of care navigation, identifying and reducing variation to ensure better appropriateness of appointments.
Reviewing care navigation and triage processes to help improve access, continuity and reduce variation.
Maximising use of telephony and digital systems, such as online consultation tools and the NHS App.
Improved flows to and links with other local services, through developing care navigation processes in the practice.
Working with a PCN to improve any process/ access for patients.
Supporting all practices move towards the modern general practice model depending on their population needs.
Support is provided by one of five national delivery partners working on behalf of NHS England. They are: Develop Consulting, Xytal, RCGP, NHS CSU Collaborative and Qualitas.
Each of the delivery partners has vast experience in delivering this type of improvement activity to general practice.
The facilitators working with practices are experienced in general practice, improvement methodologies and will support practices to realise real world improvements, whilst collecting tangible outcome data on efficiency, productivity or patient experience improvements.
Basic support offer:
6 on site visits (OSVs) & 2 Virtual Group Based Learning Sessions
Optional sessions:
Up to 9 additional on site visits
All practices in a PCN can go through support together, with the focus tailored to the PCN’s needs. This would involve all practices participating in at least the basic support offer.
Discover how Practice Level Support (PLS) can support your team in delivering more efficient care and improving patient access.
Contact us today to learn more about PLS and how it can benefit your practice.