‘Funding must follow the patient’, College welcomes support for Advice and Guidance services

Responding to the Government's expansion of the Advice and Guidance scheme, Professor Kamila Hawthorne, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, said:

“Reducing the NHS backlog is in everyone’s best interests, so we’re encouraged by the Government’s commitment to extra support for general practice to help get patients off hospital waiting lists and into the community, where we know they prefer to be treated and where it is more cost-effective to deliver care.

“We know that being on a waiting list can be distressing for patients, and the impact on GPs and our teams is significant as the responsibility for looking after those patients falls to us while they wait for their treatment.

"Advice and Guidance services have the potential to support GPs to refer appropriately and deliver care to patients whilst they are waiting for specialist treatment, but it’s crucial that GP services have the capacity to accommodate the shift from hospitals to community care so this funding is a good step in the right direction.

“In the past, some GPs have reported issues with using A&G services, including that they shift care into general practice without appropriate resource and that they can be used to reject necessary referrals.

“We have always been supportive of the Government’s aspiration to shift more care into the community, and an increasing use of A&G services may help enable this, as long as it is properly resourced across the country.

“Funding must follow the patient, and we need to see significant investment in general practice, following years of underfunding by successive governments, so we can deliver safe, timely and appropriate care to our patients close to home.”

Further information

RCGP press office: 0203 188 7659
press@rcgp.org.uk

Notes to editors

The Royal College of General Practitioners is a network of more than 54,000 family doctors working to improve care for patients. We work to encourage and maintain the highest standards of general medical practice and act as the voice of GPs on education, training, research and clinical standards.