New GP contract could incentivise continuity of care, says minister

The GP contract in England needs to be revamped to focus on “three big shifts” in the delivery of care that the government identified in response to Ara Darzi’s recent review,1 the minister responsible for general practice has said.

Speaking at a fringe event organised by the Royal College of General Practitioners at the Labour Party’s conference in Liverpool on 24 September, the care minister, Stephen Kinnock, said that although negotiations over a new contract between the government and the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee (GPC) for England continued, Labour wanted the contract to support the three shifts: from an analogue to a digital NHS, from hospitals to communities, and from sickness to prevention.

In terms of the GP contract the government is looking at how …