This site is intended for health professionals only


LMCs back partnership incentives in key vote

By Gareth Iacobucci

GPs have voted for the profession to negotiate incentives to encourage GP partnerships, in order to avoid ‘wholesale death by salary'.

Delegates at the annual conference of LMCs supported a motion which urged the GPC to do ‘everything in its power' to encourage the formation of partnerships, including pushing for a reintroduction of ‘a basic practice allowance'.

The vote is a victory for a key strand of Pulse's One Voice campaign, which called for the financial incentives to be negotiated to support GPs to take on more partners.

But GPs rejected a separate strand of the motion which called on GPs ‘never' to employ another salaried GP for more than five years without offering them a partnership.

Dr John Crompton, chair of North Yorkshire LMC, who proposed the motion, said: ‘These proposals are ambitious and fairly radical but they need to be.'

‘This hiatus of partnerships, if left unchecked, will have serious repercussions. We really do need some investment.'

A separate motion also yielded full support for the recommendations in the GPC's Sessional GP Working Group's report into improving representation for salaried and locum GPs.

LMC delegates voted in favour of partnership incentives LMC delegates voted in favour of partnership incentives