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MPIG is a fudge that has to go

I am a partner in a practice that receives zero MPIG weighting. When the new contract was brought in more than seven years ago there were promises of payment for quality practice and equality of funding for patients. Instead the GPC negotiators delivered a fudge called the MPIG that has entrenched inequality.

How can it be right to pay some practices far less per patient than others? The excuse the GPC is using now is that the extra money is for work done. Please can someone tell me when this assessment of the work each practice does was carried out? This is a lame excuse for inequality in funding.

I am disappointed to see our so-called professional leaders using exaggeration and hyperbole in their negotiations with the government. The ‘bloodbath’ you refer to in the story, (‘Bloodbath” predicted for GP practices due to MPIG phase-out’) actually means some GPs will have their income reduced and won’t like it.

My practice has experienced seven years of this lower income and my patients have had fewer services because of it. ‘Destabilising’ general practice just means some practices resent change. I resent the continuing disadvantage MPIG gives to my patients and me.

How can the GPC continue to ignore the fact that some practices are unfairly rewarded compared with those on low or zero MPIG? When are our political leaders going to do something about that?

For once I side entirely with the Government and would ask the profession to think about the whole picture and not just self-interest.

From Dr Brett La Hay, Dundee