Half of PCT-practice agreements signed

More than 50% of GP practices have now signed their PCT-practice agreement for GP Systems of Choice.

Just under 4,000 practices had signed up to the agreement by 27 February, according to figures published by NHS Connecting for Health, leaving 3,286 practices still to do so.

The figures show that 37 PCTs have signed agreements with all their GP practices, while 53 PCTs have yet to sign a single agreement.

The most successful strategic health authorities are East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber, with 95% and 90% of agreements signed respectively.

Only 20 % of PCTs and GPs in London, the worst performing SHA, have signed their agreements.

CfH has not set a national deadline for agreements to be signed, although the original intention was to achieve 100% take-up by last April.

Instead, PCTs have been asked to agree local deadlines with their SHA. The CfH database shows that all SHAs have already gone past their target dates for completion of all agreements.

CfH said that if a practice chose not to sign their PCT-practice agreement their GPSoC services would no longer be funded by CfH under the GPSoC arrangements.

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