Prescription for prevention: A new funding model for primary care

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This is a supplementary paper that is intended to be read alongside Prescription for Prevention, which outlines the overarching framework for a modern, preventative primary care system.

There is currently a profound mismatch between the ambition to move care out of hospitals and a funding model which continues to inhibit the prioritisation of primary and community care.

Too often, the debate on funding is focused on how much money is channelled into the health system rather than how it is distributed across the health system. To ensure that funding flows towards primary care, and within this, activity incentivises prevention and health creation, a rethink of how money flows through the system is needed.

Learning from funding models in other countries, a future model of primary care contracting would need to reflect three key principles: incentivise outcomes rather than activity, focus on population groups rather than disease pathways, and enable long-term planning. This paper sets out different options for contracting services and suggests how, in the long-term, budgets could be devolved and pooled to create a genuinely sustainable and preventative system of primary care.