Delivered by three national partners, including Develop Consulting, the programme has already supported thousands of practices to improve patient experience, release clinical capacity and build sustainable models of care.
Practice Level Support is designed to implement modern general practice and to assist practices to improve their efficiency, productivity and overall patient experience, often with a particular focus on patient access. Since the programme began, 1,002 practices completed PLS in 2023 to 24 alone, with 75% of sites releasing or planning to release clinical or administrative capacity, and an average of over 7 hours of clinical time released each week. The programme is delivered by experienced NHS improvement consultants who work directly with practices to implement real and lasting change to benefit the way they operate. Our consultants integrate themselves as an extension of the practice team, putting improvement at the heart of what they do.
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 2026/27 national priorities included in the Medium Term Planning Framework, 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 to 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.
PLS supports delivery of: Modern General Practice, Neighbourhood Health, Access Improvement, Digital Transformation, Workforce Optimisation, Prevention, Productivity, and Population Health.
Improves patient access
Proven improvement programme
Flexible approach
Robust outcome reporting
Little admin/time required from ICB
Aligns to Medium Term Planning Framework
Reduced unwarranted variation
Supports embedding of neighbourhood models
Using proven improvement methods, data insights and practical support, the programme helps practices deliver measurable improvements in access, continuity, productivity, workforce utilisation and patient experience, while supporting delivery of national NHS priorities and the transition to Modern General Practice.
PLS helps organisations to: improve access, increase productivity, reduce unwarranted variation, strengthen multidisciplinary working, embed neighbourhood models, and improve staff and patient experience.
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
1,002 practices completed Practice Level Support in 2023 to 24, covering 1,034 sites across all ICBs and 47% of PCNs.
75%+ of sites reported releasing or planning to release clinical and/or administrative time.
7 hours 39 minutes average clinical time potentially released and reallocated per week.
9 hours 29 minutes average admin time potentially released and reallocated per week.
78% of sites improved staff experience, typically through better morale and wellbeing.
49% of sites built and embedded a Quality Improvement (QI) approach.
43% of sites improved care navigation, most commonly by increasing signposting to non-GP services.
27% of sites increased the number and/or use of ARRS roles within the practice.
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, for example diabetes and 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.
In-person sessions last three hours and take place either in the morning or afternoon.
Practices select the time and day they would like their consultant to support them.
There will be flexibility in delivery packages so that the support package can be altered in blocks of 3 (e.g. 15 OSVs, 12 OSVs) down to a minimum of 9 OSVs, typically delivered over 6 months.
Support is delivered by three national delivery partners, including Develop Consulting, who are working on behalf of NHS England.
Each of the delivery partners has vast experience in delivering this type of improvement activity to general practice.
Our experienced NHS improvement consultants working with practices are experienced in general practice and improvement methodologies, and will support practices to realise real world improvements, whilst collecting tangible outcome data on efficiency, productivity or patient experience improvements.
All practices in a PCN can go through support together, with the focus tailored to the PCN’s needs.
Practices who are likely to identify many gaps in their assessment against the MGP model. They need help to improve their access system to become more mature in relation to the MGP model.
Practices who have made good progress in most or all elements of the MGP model and want to sustain these improvements and develop their approach in new access related areas, for example planned care.
‘Mature’ MGP practices that want to work with other local practices towards a common goal, aligned to their PCN, GP at Scale and Neighbourhood Health aspirations.
Plus: Facilitation of Support Level Framework with the practice, 2 OSVs.
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.