GPs need to join the table or ‘be on the menu’, says former BMA and GPC chair
If general practice is ‘not at the table’ when discussions around NHS reform are happening, it will ‘unfortunately be on the menu’, former BMA council and GP committee chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul has said.
During a speech at Pulse LIVE London last week, Dr Nagpaul said that the NHS is ‘destined for unprecedented change’ and that GPs need to be ‘demanding of their rightful place in these changes’.
He said that since the Government has committed to shifting funding from hospitals into the community, GPs and LMCs ‘need to throw those words back’ to their ICBs, and make sure this change happens.
He said: ‘It’s going to be really important that we are proactive, very demanding of our rightful place in these changes, as GPs and PCNs are going to need to reframe and adapt.
‘It’s really important, I think, that we all collectively state our claim and make that demand on that “leftward shift”. That’s not our words. It’s the words of Government itself.
‘If that’s what they’re saying, we need to throw those words back in their face, throw those words back to the ICB’s leadership, and say “this is what you need to do, and this is how you’re going to go about doing it”.’
He highlighted the place of LMCs in influencing local policy, pointing out that in North West London, the LMC managed to reverse a decision made by the ICB on effectively mandating the use of ‘same-day access hubs’, leaving GP practices with only ‘complex’ patient care.
Pulse exclusively revealed the ICB was considering the policy, introducing the requirement as part of its ‘single offer’ local enhanced service, with practices obliged to sign up to all services to access the funding – effectively mandating the hubs.
London GP leaders, as well as patients, raised ‘immense concern’ with the plans, including patient safety, quality of care, and logistics.
And a month later, Pulse also revealed that the ICB had been forced to shelve the plans following backlash from patients and pressures from the LMC.
Dr Nagpaul said: ‘I do think we need to engage our patients. With the help of Pulse we managed to reverse a major policy shift in our ICB.
‘At the end of the day, if general practice is not at the table, it will, unfortunately, be on the menu.’
Dr Nagpaul added that NHS leaders need to be reminded that ‘the greater the ICB’s financial deficit, the greater the hospital deficit, the greater the need to actually invest in general practice and primary care’.
He said: ‘It’s just so obvious when you actually look at how far a single pound would stretch within general practice and what you provide for it, compared to what is spent in hospitals.
‘That paradigm just hasn’t seemed to sink in amongst a lot of the people who control budgets, and I really hope that we can just continue to labour that point.
‘But more importantly, I think demand that these changes occur on the back of the explicit commitment of leftward shift.’
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READERS' COMMENTS [2]
Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles
Nah, I say go dental model; private/NHS provision. I should imagine private health companies will jump at the chance to provide 3rd party finance plans for GP equivalent to Denplan, etc. The like dentists they can also take direct patient payments for adhoc services like many of us do with dental care if we haven’t signed up to a plan. As GPs are already in PCNs they work in groups, have numbers of surgery sites so providing private services in a separate location is possible.
That’s the way I’d go. With separate private income stream to stabilise surgeries financially surgeries would be in a good position to negotiate their NHS provision to work well both for practices financial stability and for better patient care.
What need is a good negotiating position and this is the only one that is strong.
Otherwise we are at the whim of each and every self serving, dumb or corrupt politician.
Streeting happy to pour public money into private healthcare hospitals for electives.
GPs provide 90% of NHS consults for 8% of budget and no politician have ever shown an understanding or appreciation of just how successful and useful we are and we are being ground down into the dirt and that ain’t going to change no matter how many dumb arse meetings we go to with ICSs who are another bunch of self serving bureaucrats.
Dental model. Stat
Actually when patients have an ad hoc GP appt with private providers like push doctor NHS foots the bill. So I should think under right to choose or whatever provision allows that, the patient could see their GP privately for an ad hoc consultation, get the NHS to cover the bill for that consult, then get fed into the NHS system with NHS referrals etc because that is how it works when these private GPs consult with them now. Be hysterical if the PCN structures allowed GP surgeries to have the private/NHS dental type model due to multiple sites so fulfilling the criteria to see private patients on a separate site. I’m sure there would be a tidy way to do this. Would be nice to outmanoeuvre the politicians. GP online consults charge £70 for a 10 minute consult. I know this because my sister had to resort to it recently as since the full digital unlimited access thing she can no longer get appointments for her family. Was actually functioning really well before the government imposed contract change.
Anyway. I digress, Sorry. Again, Dental model stat.