Nurses made up just 25 of more than 1,000 successful applicants for the ‘golden handshake’ scheme for new GP partners, it has emerged.
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It said that an overwhelming majority of successful applicants were GPs – with 1,308 GPs, 25 nurses, 20 pharmacists, four paramedics, two physician associates and one physiotherapist accepted.
The scheme, launched in July 2020, offers a £20,000 payment as well as up to £3,000 as a training fund to support staff to transition to practice partnership.
Pulse also learned from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request that NHS England has also clawed back some funds where partners’ ‘circumstances changed’.
Providing figures for the 18-month period from 1 July 2020 to 31 December 2021, NHS England said the total value of all new-to-partnership grant payments was £19.7m. It approved 1,295 applications to the scheme as of 17 January (87%) out of the 1,489 made since it launched.
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The data also revealed NHS England has so far approved almost nine in 10 applications for the scheme. Of the 1,489 applications, NHS England said that:
- 89 required further detail before processing
- 57 are currently in progress
- 43 were rejected for being ‘ineligible’
- Five were withdrawn by the applicants.
Of the 43 ‘ineligible’ applications, eight were due to the new partner having a ‘fixed-share’ role and 23 were due to partners having a ‘probation’ period prior to the scheme’s start date on 1 April 2020. Nine were because the applicant was deemed to have been a partner before April 2020.
When asked how many applicants had so far received the £20,000, NHS England said that it had received payment requests for 1,084 applicants by 17 January. It added: ‘Requests are made once the contracts and financial agreements have been signed.’
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But no applicants have received the £3,000 training fund to support the transition to practice partnership yet, it confirmed.
Currently, 12 healthcare professions are eligible for the scheme, which is due to end in March 2023 – GPs, nurses, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, physiotherapists, paramedics, midwives, dietitians, podiatrists, occupational therapists, mental health practitioners and physician associates.
