Health Bill amendment proposes seven-day GP appointment guarantee
A proposed amendment to the Health Bill would require GPs to see any patient seeking an appointment within seven days of requesting one.
The Health Bill – which contains legislation to create the single patient record and abolish NHS England – is currently in its committee stage, where lawmakers can debate and vote on amendments to the contents of the bill.
Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan proposed an amendment forcing the health secretary to include ‘a scheme to ensure that patients have the right to see a GP within seven days’, or 24 hours if it is urgent.
The amendment states: ‘The Secretary of State must by regulations, within six months of the passing of this Act, establish a scheme to provide every patient with the right to a GP appointment within seven days of seeking one.
‘The scheme should include a right contained in the NHS constitution for a patient to receive a GP appointment within seven days, or 24 hours if urgent.’
An explanatory note to the amendment added: ‘This new clause requires the Secretary of State to introduce a scheme to ensure that patients have the right to see a GP within seven days.’
Debating the amendment in a public bill committee last week, Labour MP Sojan Joseph said this ‘legal burden’ on GP practices would ‘reduce their ability to prioritise, meaning that the people who need urgent treatment will be delayed further’.
Conservative MP Edward Argar said there was a ‘fear that it may raise expectations that are not necessarily deliverable on in the current context’.
Another proposed amendment to the bill would stop the creation of the single patient record without a plan to prevent ‘inappropriate access’ of patients’ health records.
The Government has said the single patient record will make patients’ data visible to clinicians across different care settings and will also be available for patients to view on the NHS App by 2028. The Health Bill would compel GPs to share their patients’ information for the single patient record under threat of ‘sanctions’.
Dr Caroline Johnson, who is a member of the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee, wrote an amendment which would prevent the secretary of state from establishing the single patient record ‘unless a plan to prevent inappropriate access by clinicians’ has been published.
It comes after a series of media reports of NHS staff being reprimanded or dismissed after inappropriately accessing health records of the victims of high-profile incidents.
The Tory MP’s amendment states: ‘Regulations may not be laid under this section unless the Secretary of State has published a plan setting out the measures to be taken to prevent clinicians and other persons involved in the provision of health care or social care from accessing patient information made available through the system otherwise than for the purposes of the care of the patient concerned (an “inappropriate access prevention plan”).’
It said any such plan should include ‘technical controls’ to restrict access to patient information, a clear audit trail to establish who accessed information and when, and should set out clear roles for the CQC and Information Commissioner in enforcing compliance with these controls.
An explanatory statement for the amendment added: ‘This amendment prevents the Secretary of State from making regulations to establish the single patient record unless a plan to prevent inappropriate access by clinicians and other care workers has first been published and laid before Parliament.’
Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) GP spokesperson Dr Steve Taylor told Pulse there needs to be a wider consultation to define ‘appropriate’ access before the single patient record is created.
Dr Taylor said: ‘Before the single patient record is fully rolled out, there are a lot of questions that need to be resolved. It needs a full consultation with patient groups, doctors, professionals in different sectors, and people need to decide what’s needed and what’s not, rather than just going carte blanche on everything.’
He also said the establishment of technical controls as part of an inappropriate access plan could affect learning opportunities for GPs.
He said: ‘There is professional curiosity, and then there’s snooping, which is just downright wrong.
‘I think in theory this [amendment] would end professional curiosity, because ultimately if I came into my surgery tomorrow and I see on the boards that somebody’s passed away, I may have a look to see what had happened.
‘Is it professional curiosity to go and find out about somebody I’ve had some input in their care over the last 10 years, to find out how what happened? There are things I could learn from that – did I do something wrong in the process of looking after that patient six months ago?’
GP leaders and patient data groups have previously voiced concerns about how confidentiality of patient data would be protected in the legislation.
Meanwhile, the Government proposed its own amendment to the bill which would ensure dispensing contracts are made with GP practices instead of individual GPs.
Proposed by care minister Karin Smyth, the amendment states: ‘This updates the legislation about the provision of pharmaceutical services by medical practitioners to conform with current law and practice whereby commissioning arrangements are generally made with the practice rather than individual doctors.’
At the public bill committee, Ms Smyth elaborated on the amendment, arguing: ‘In practice today, arrangements for primary medical services are made with GP practices, not individual general practitioners, and patient lists are held at practice level.
‘New clause 21 therefore brings the legislation into line with the way services are already commissioned and delivered. It will mean that, where such arrangements are made with dispensing doctors, they are made with GP practices rather than individual GPs.’
Pulse has contacted DHSC to comment on the proposed amendments.
