16:50 Elsewhere, the #JustHealth campaign – which was launched yesterday in protest against the imposition of the junior doctor contract – has now raised over £70,000 in 24 hours.
The campaign, that was set up by NHS staff and patients, is looking to initiate a judicial review on the impact of the new imposed junior doctors’ contract on ‘patient safety and stability of the NHS’.
This planned review is broader than the BMA’s review on the Government’s failure to carry out an equality impact assessment before imposing the new contract and will consider all Government decisions that led to the contract imposition.
But the group needed to crowdfund £25,000 to start the proceedings, and aims to establish a working case fund of around £250,000. They are looking for donations through Crowd Justice.
14:10 And a survey which was launched just a few hours ago by the Resilient GP group, GP survival and Londonwide LMCs has already racked up over 1,000 responses.
The survey calls on GPs to ‘dictate’ the terms of much anticipated ‘rescue package’ for general practice, devised by health secretary Jeremy Hunt.
The GP groups which set up the survey have created a sample rescue package, which it considers to be the minimum requirements to stabilise the profession – but it asks GPs to prioritise parts of the sample rescue package to highlight what issues they are most concerned about.
With 1000 responses in 1st few hours, this survey from us, @LondonwideLMCs & @cgps_gp is obviously chiming with GPs! https://t.co/4Yh6211mF9
— Resilient GP® (@ResilientGP) March 14, 2016
When is Hunt’s rescue package going to be announced?
In January, Jeremy Hunt said that he would announce the new package of support for general practice later that month, saying he wanted to do more to ‘support the profession’.
He promised that it would be discussed with the RCGP and the GPC and released in February, but it has been delayed until later this month or April.
According to our sources, the Department of Health has delayed the announcement because there has been wrangling over the size of the promised funding. Pulse has learnt from insiders that DH proposed a £110m rescue package of measures for GPs, including a refreshed retainers scheme and more than 100 ‘golden hellos’ to tempt GP trainees to work in hard-to-recruit areas.
The GPC subsequnetly told Pulse that they were pushing for a much larger investment to ease the pressures on general practice in England.
11:55 Leading doctors have written to Chancellor George Osborne demanding more funding for social care, adding that the current cuts to the sector are placing further strain on the NHS.
The letter is signed by 14 leading doctors including Professor Dame Sue Bailey, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and Professor Jane Dacre, president of the Royal College of Physicians – who claim that investing in social care was ’vital for the success of the NHS.’
According to the BBC, the letter outlines the impact of underfunding the social care system, adding that patients are being left in hospital because social support is not available within the community.
But the government has since said it has given ‘local authorities access to up to £3.5bn to spend on social care and councils will have almost £200bn to spend on local services over the lifetime of this parliament.’
11:24 The GP rural fellowship scheme in Scotland has been hailed as a success after a study found that 71% of graduates of the programme are still working in rural areas or accessible small towns in Scotland, with 60% in ‘substantive general practice roles’ in these areas, the Scotsman reports.
The scheme, which is run by NHS Education for Scotland and local health boards, offers newly-qualified GPs an extra year’s training in a rural practice. It has been running since 2002, and 69 graduates in total have taken part.
The authors of the study, including Pulse blogger Dr David Hogg wrote that the results ‘underline previously unpublished data that suggests that approximately three-quarters of graduates are retained in important roles in rural Scotland.’
10:30 This morning we are leading on a GP federation which provids APMS services for nearly 40,000 patients that has gone into administration after running into financial difficulties leaving local GPs thousands of pounds out of pocket.
9:40 Over the weekend, a big story broke on a group of NHS staff and patients’ move to initiate a judicial review on the impact of the new imposed junior doctors’ contract on ‘patient safety and stability of the NHS’.
This planned review, which is broader than the BMA’s review on the Government’s failure to carry out an equality impact assessment before imposing the new contract, will consider all Government decisions that led to the contract imposition.
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