PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Primary Care Networks: Recruitment (11 October 2022)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much of the Additional Roles Reimbursement Sum funding for Primary Care Networks in England went unspent for each of the years that the scheme has been operating.

Asked by:
Feryal Clark (Labour)

Additional Roles Reimbursement Sum (ARRS) funding allocations are made available for Primary Care Networks (PCNs) to reimburse roles that are defined in the General Practice contract. If left un-used, funding can be re-distributed by the service commissioner to PCNs that can go further and reimburse more members of staff.

Underspends in the ARRS are reported in ‘Investment in General Practice’. This shows a £164 million underspend in the ARRS in 2020/2021. Information for subsequent years will be available in future publications of ‘Investment in General Practice’.

As a new programme, there was generous headroom in the ARRS funding that was available to draw down in earlier years, this allowed for recruitment of more expensive roles, or higher recruitment earlier in the year leading to higher overall costs.

Answered by:
Will Quince (Conservative)
26 October 2022