Ensuring GPs do not inherit debt is laudable and an essential requirement if GP commissioning is to be adopted.
However, in my view, it is something that the Government may well concede to GPs in order to avert attention from the elephant in the room – that is, that the whole exercise is designed to devolve responsibility and ultimately, blame, on to us for the inevitable failure to balance the books.
We should not be seduced by the offer of management allowances. These proposals will put us squarely in the firing line of disillusioned patients, when services and choice are cut back, and self-serving politicians, who will heave a huge sigh of relief and gloat over our gullibility.
They will ascribe the failures of the system to GP mismanagement, rather than the chronic underfunding and ramped-up expectations that will be their legacy.
We are being pushed blindfolded into uncharted territory, as scapegoats for failed ‘reforms', and should resist this cynical manipulation wholeheartedly.
From Dr Peter Arnold
Walton-on-Thames
