FOI 2026/1603

I’d be grateful if you could provide me with the following information relating to advanced practitioners. Advanced practitioners refers to any clinician with ‘advanced’ in their title, including but not exclusive to:

-Advanced clinical practitioner

-Advanced nursing practitioner

1.

a) Please provide the total number of advanced practitioners employed in primary care within the ICB for each of the years 2021 to 2025.

b) If possible, please specify whether employment was through Primary Care Networks (PCNs), Federations, or individual practices.

c) Please could you specify whether the role was funded by the ARRS scheme.

2.

a) Please provide the total number of sessions undertaken by advanced practitioners employed in Primary Care within the ICB for each of the years 2021 to 2025.

b) If possible, please could you specify whether the session was funded by the ARRS scheme, and provide break down to identify advance practitioners working in:

i. Registered GP practice in core hours.

ii. Out-of-hours service outside of core hours.

iii. Walk-in centre.

3.

a) Please could you provide the salary range for advanced practitioners employed in Primary Care within the ICB for each of the years 2021 to 2025.

b) If possible, please could you specify salary range for:

i. ARRS-funded Advanced Practitioners.

ii. Advanced Practitioners not funded through ARRS scheme.

4.

a) Please could you provide the total salary expenditure for advanced practitioners employed in Primary Care within the ICB for each of the years 2021 to 2025.

b) If possible, please could you specify total salary expenditure for:

i. ARRS-funded Advanced Practitioners.

ii. Advanced Practitioners not funded through ARRS scheme.

5.

a) Please could you provide the total number of hours worked by advanced practitioners employed in Primary Care within the ICB for each of the years 2021 to 2025.

b) If possible, please could you specify total number of hours worked for:

i. ARRS-funded Advanced Practitioners

ii. Advanced Practitioners not funded through ARRS scheme.

6.

a) Please could you provide us with any existing documentation which describes the job duties and responsibilities of advanced practitioners employed in Primary Care within the ICB. If possible, please could you specify if there are any differences in duties and responsibilities between ARRS-funded and non ARRS-funded roles.

b) If not covered in existing documentation, please confirm whether advanced practitioners employed in Primary Care within the ICB;

i. Make referrals to other specialties.

ii. Cover ‘on call’ duties.

iii. Work without immediate access to onsite clinical cover from a post-CCT General Practitioner.

iv. Supervise GP trainees and/or medical students.

v. Provide teaching to GP trainees and/or medical students.

7.

Within your ICB, please could you tell us:

a) if advanced practitioners employed in Primary Care are ever deployed on medical rotas or cover work typically carried out by General Practitioners.

b) if advanced practitioners are permitted to cover General Practitioner rota gaps.

8.

a) Please provide us with a copy of bank shift rotas currently used for all medical and non-medical roles.

b) Please provide us with the current hourly rate-range paid to advanced practitioners working bank shifts at your ICB, broken down by years of service if applicable, for each of the years 2021 to 2025.

1.a) NHS Greater Manchester (NHS GM) only have access to data relating to the number of advanced practitioners via ARRS. The number of advanced practitioners employed under the ARRS programme, in accordance with claims made by GM PCNs for ARRS-funded Advanced Practitioners:

There may be additional advanced practitioners employed outside of ARRS but NHS GM is not able to disaggregate this data from other direct patient roles reported by GP practices in national workforce returns.

National Workforce Reporting Service (NWRS) – NHS England Digital

b) Various ARRS roles are employed by practices, PCNs and Federations. There may be other advanced practitioner roles employed by practices outside of ARRS, but NHS GM do not have access to this data.

NHS GM does not directly employ or manage these staff in primary care and does not hold this information.

c) All ARRS roles are funded through the ARRS scheme. As within the responses above, NHS GM does not directly employ or manage these staff in primary care and does not hold additional detailed information.

2. a) & b) NHS GM does not directly employ or manage these staff in primary care and does not hold this information.

3. a) & b) NHS GM does not directly employ or manage these staff in primary care and does not hold this information. It is expected that advanced practitioners would be employed in alignment with Agenda for Change Band 8A hour rate:

4. a) & b) In accordance with claims made by GM PCNs for ARRS-funded Advanced Practitioners:

b) ii. N/A

5. a) & b) NHS GM does not directly employ or manage these staff in primary care and does not hold this information.

6. a) NHS GM does not directly employ or manage these staff in primary care and does not hold this information.

6. b) NHS GM does not directly employ or manage these staff in primary care

Minimum roles requirements for the Advanced Practitioner role need to be met in order to claim under ARRS Network Contract DES – Contract specification 2025/26 – PCN requirements are :

B.15 Advanced Practitioners

B15.1. Advanced Practitioners are designated to the Network Contract DES roles for Clinical Pharmacists, First Contact Physiotherapists, Dietitians, Podiatrists, Occupational Therapists, Paramedics and Advanced Practitioner Nurses.

B15.2. Where a PCN employs or engages an Advanced Practitioner as outlined in B15.1 under the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, the PCN must ensure that the Advanced Practitioner: a. has a master’s degree level in the relevant area of expertise; b. is working at a master’s level aware or equivalent that encompasses the four pillars of clinical practice, leadership and management, education and research, with demonstration of core capabilities and area specific clinical competencies84; c. for advanced practice pharmacists only, has qualified from an approved 18-month training pathway or equivalent and qualified as an independent prescriber; and d. for Advanced Practitioner Nurses only they must have either: 1. graduated from a Centre for Advancing Practice accredited MSc advanced practice programme or completed the Centre’s ePortfolio (Supported) Route; both pathways enable eligibility for an ‘Advanced’ digital badge issued by the Centre for Advancing Practice, demonstrating recognised educational and experiential preparation in advanced practice; or 2. enrolled as a trainee on a Centre for Advancing Practice accredited MSc advanced practice programme linked with subsequent guaranteed progression onto a reimbursable Advanced Practitioner Nurse role on completion of training; or 3. enrolled on and progressed past the initial Learning Needs Analysis (LNA) stage of the Centre for Advancing Practice ePortfolio (supported) Route, linked with subsequent guaranteed progression onto a reimbursable Advanced Practitioner Nurse role on completion of the ePortfolio process. in order to deliver the key responsibilities outlined in section B15.

B15.3.Where a PCN employs or engages an Advanced Practitioner under the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, the PCN must ensure that each Advanced Practitioner has the following additional key responsibilities to those outlined in the relevant section of this Annex B, in delivering health services: a. assess and triage patients, including same day triage, and as appropriate provide definitive treatment (including prescribing medications following policy, patient group directives, NICE (national) and local clinical guidelines and local care pathways) or make necessary referrals to other members of the primary care team; b. manage undifferentiated undiagnosed condition and identify red flags and underlying serious pathology and take appropriate action; c. use complex decision making to inform the diagnosis, investigation, complete management of episodes of care within a broad scope of practice; d. actively take a personalised care approach and population centred care approach to enable shared decision making with the presenting person; and e. complete the relevant training in order to provide multi-professional clinical practice and CPD supervision to other roles within primary care, for example first contact practitioners and the personalised care roles.

7. a) & b) NHS GM does not directly employ or manage these staff in primary care and does not hold information on rotas or cover arrangements.

8. a) NHS GM does not directly employ or manage these staff in primary care and does not hold information on rotas or cover arrangements.

8. b) NHS GM does not directly employ these staff in primary care, however it is anticipated that these staff would be employed aligned to the Agenda for Change Band 8A hour rate: