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GPs to debate call for funding of £200 per patient per year

GP leaders are set to debate a proposal to demand that all GP practices receive at least £200 per patient per year.

The motion, to be proposed to the emergency LMC Conference by Leeds LMC, claims that the £141 average payment per patient is ‘wholly inadequate’ and unsafe for patients.

The motion, which forms part of the agenda published today, says: ’That conference notes that practices currently provide a year of care for an average of £141 per patient and believes that this is wholly inadequate to provide a safe, sustainable and responsive service that meets the growing needs of their patients and therefore calls on governments to ensure that all practices receive at least £200 per patient per year.’

Meanwhile, Birmingham LMC had proposed a motion, not put forward for debate by the agenda committee, which requested more funding, of £22 per month per patient. It said this would ’ensure the provision of safe GP services, including an increase in average GP consultation times to 20 minutes’.

An originally proposed motion from Leeds LMC, also not scheduled for debate, had further suggested the Government make a commitment to spend at least 11% of the NHS budget on general practice, in line with the long-standing demand from RCGP.

The Government has pledged to increase investment in general practice by at least 4% a year until 2021, but the Department of Health’s evidence to the independent pay review body, also published today, indicated that this will unlikely be invested via the GMS contract – focusing instead on the Prime Minister’s new seven-day access contract for larger practices with at least 30,000 patients.

The Government has mandated NHS England to ensure that the new models of care being developed by NHS England – including the larger-scale GP-led multi-specialty community care partnerships (MCPs) – will cover at least half of England’s population by 2020.

The motion in full

LEEDS: That conference notes that practices currently provide a year of care for an average of £141 per patient and believes that this is wholly inadequate to provide a safe, sustainable and responsive service that meets the growing needs of their patients and therefore calls on governments to ensure that all practices receive at least £200 per patient per year.