News / PCN management funds welcomed

A letter from NHS England and NHS Improvement to primary care leads set out funding and new service requirements. NHS England confirmed the Investment and Impact Fund (IIF) – the incentive scheme that promotes PCN service improvement goals – will be worth £150m in the current year and £225m in 2022/23, but that new funding totalling £43m will be available for PCN leadership and management in 2021/22.

The funding will be allocated on the basis of the clinical commissioning group primary medical allocation formula, which includes adjustments for areas of higher deprivation. PCN clinical directors should recommend how management funding should be deployed, the letter said.

Clinical directors rather than commissioners should ensure the IIF is reinvested in services and staff, it said. ‘PCNs need to know that if they achieve the goals, they can be certain that the funding will definitely follow.’

NHS Confederation PCN Network chair Pramit Patel (pictured) welcomed the funding, adding: ‘The introduction of dedicated funding for management resource is long overdue and will enable PCNs to put in place a more robust management infrastructure necessary to oversee the increasing amount of responsibility they are being given.’