GPs need guidance and incentives if they are to continue to provide good continuity of care in the face of major NHS upheaval, the leader of the King’s fund inquiry into general practice has told Pulse.
The Coalition Government has vowed to stick by its pledge to guarantee that all patients with cancer will be seen by a specialist within two weeks of a GP referral.
GP leaders have called for all existing Summary Care Records to be ‘immediately suspended’ by the Government, as they are posing a ‘significant danger’ to patients.
GPs are set to be thrust into commissioning out-of-hours care as early as next April, as the Government’s root-and-branch restructuring of the NHS begins to take shape.
The growing commercialisation of primary care has been ‘substantially understated’, with private firms now running over 200 surgeries and health centres across England and many companies rapidly expanding their business, a study has shown.
The out-of-hours company which employed German locum GP Dr Daniel Ubani failed to address ‘systematic’ failings in its procedures prior to the death of patient David Gray, the Care Quality Commission has found.
The GMC has pledged to ‘simplify and streamline’ its proposals for revalidation in a bid to satisfy the Government’s demand for a slimmed-down scheme that will reduce bureaucracy for GPs.
GP commissioning consortiums and federations will not be necessarily the same thing, and the proposals in the recent health White Paper will result in GPs often becoming members of both, RCGP chair Professor Steve Field believes.
Exclusive: A group of leading private companies is planning a major joint initiative to persuade GP consortiums to partner up with them, on the back of the Government’s White Paper on health, Pulse can reveal.