Exclusive Reforms to the funding of postgraduate medical training that could eventually see practices paying for the ‘benefit’ they get from having a trainee working in their practice will not be introduced in April 2014, due to an ‘error’ in planning documents.
The Department of Health said that an mistake in planning documents meant that controversial plans to introduce a new training ‘tariff’ in primary care would not now occur in April this year, and instead are planned for April 2015.
Pulse revealed last August that plans to extend the tariff model to primary care could see GPs having to pay part of the salaries of trainees in proposals the GPC warned could ‘spell the ‘end of general practice training as we know it’,
But the deadline to introduce more ‘equitable model’ of funding for postgraduate medical training from April 2014 contained in Health Education England’s business plan for 2013/14 was a mistake according to the DH.
A DH spokesperson told Pulse that an ‘error’ meant that the HEE business plan had the wrong deadline to introduce the tariff and that the introduction of the tariff in secondary care would not take place until April 2015 ‘at the earliest’.
She said: ‘We are working with Health Education England, the BMA, the Royal College of GPs and the medical schools to establish how a new system could work.
‘Any new system will need to be properly costed and the impact of the changes understood. Decisions on when to implement changes won’t be taken until that work is complete and implementation will not begin before April 2015.’
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GPC chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said that the GPC was lobbying the Government not to go ahead with the controversial plans to charge practices for trainees.
He said: ‘We are involved in these dialogues and we have made it clear to the Government that if it wants to increase GP numbers then the work involved in training GPs has to be properly financially recognised.’
