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GP leaders set to debate patient co-payments

GP leaders are set to debate patient co-payments at the annual Welsh LMCs Conference this Saturday.

LMC representatives will also hear a keynote address from Welsh health secretary Vaughan Gething.

Patients paying towards seeing their GP is the topic of one of two special themed debates for the day, with the other one focusing on GP indemnity.

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In addition, delegates will vote on motions proposing:

  • the creation of GP ‘overspill’ centres for when demand cannot be safely met by practices;
  • an urgent increase of the number of GP training posts and a specific mechanism to attract ‘Welsh domicile applicants’ who are ‘more likely to end up working in their home communities’;
  • ‘all foundation training doctors to have a four-month GP placement included in their rotations in time for the August 2018 starters’;
  • and a suggestion that the Welsh Government ‘should remove responsibility for primary care from failing Local Health boards and set up a Wales Wide Primary Care Organisation with proper levels of funding’.

Wales GPC chair Dr Charlotte Jones said: ‘The co-payment debate is purely linked to interest on what happens in other countries and given how things may look in Northern Ireland in future. Also always good to consider models of provision given scarce resources available.’

The annual Welsh LMCs Conference is held in Newport on 4 March.

Northern Irish LMCs are also meeting for their annual conference this Saturday, where they will vote on sticking with their plan for a mass exit from the NHS.