Mapping the Development of Primary Care Groups: A Case Study

Abstract

The changes currently being introduced to the ways in which health care is delivered in England, under the general heading of the new NHS, have the potential to be more than just evolutionary and to transform the NHS from one which has been dominated by the secondary sector into one driven by the primary sector. But they do not start from a tabula rasa, retaining the commissioning-providing split which was a feature of the internal market, but giving the commissioning responsibility to newly-constituted Primary Care Groups to which all general practices now belong. There had already been some experimentation along these lines before the Labour Government took office, with a number of Total Purchasing Pilots in different parts of the country, one of which was Wakefield Health Authority. This paper examines what is happening in Wakefield, and begins to assess developments there against a template, proposed by the authors, suggesting the essential features of a primary care led NHS.