Watson Esam | News | Big Changes Ahead for GPs - Part 2
The Government’s White Paper “Equity and Excellence – Liberating the NHS” published on 12 July should make heartening, if challenging, reading for GPs.
They are now to be at the very centre not only for their own role in delivering primary care but also to have an £80bn commissioning role as the principal commissioner of all patients’ healthcare.
The aim is not only to maintain the historical role of GPs as being the healthcare professional nearest to the patient in terms of history and continuity, but to enhance that role as being the point at which the patient can best exercise choice and decision.
Fear of the unknown, which the White Paper anticipates, as well as the vested interests of bureaucracies on which the axe is to fall, has led to some GPs and others taking fright or condemning the proposals even before the consultation with GPs has begun.
In a comment published in the online magazine PULSE Guy Lachlan said:
“Come, come now. I didn't notice such whingeing when fund holding came along. But unlike then, now all GPs will have the same commissioning status and the Labour party will not be able to allege that this will create a 2-tier system. In practice, GPs will continue to use their local knowledge for consultant referrals. If the proposals provide a new measure of patient choice, then so do they for GPs through whom the patients will access those choices, together with some valuable commercial opportunities.”
For the full text of the Secretary of State’s statement to Parliament and comment see http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=4126546&cid=main_story_120710 (sign in required)
See previous story here
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