08 August 2003
Local health services should have first call on the extra millions of pounds being ploughed into the NHS, leading primary care organisations said this week.
As Department of Health figures revealed an 8.5% real-terms increase in the cost of GP prescriptions in 2002, the bodies said family doctors should have 'more realistic' prescribing budgets. The rise in prescribing costs to £6.8bn has sent many PCTs into the red.
At the same time, GPs were becoming disillusioned with the government's attempts to modernise the health service and were less involved in primary care trusts than they were in predecessor organisations, according to the British Medical Association, the NHS Alliance, the National Association of Primary Care and the Royal College of GPs.
In a joint statement they said that doctors must be 'fully engaged' to deliver the government's reforms.
Frontline GPs could be encouraged to take a greater role in PCTs if the additional spending was put into developing community services, such as GP-run clinics, rather than enlarging hospital services. All care, including diagnostic tests, should take place as close to the patient's home as possible.
'It is imperative that clinicians in primary care are fully engaged and involved in PCTs as frontline doctors, nurses and allied professionals have the best working knowledge of the needs of local communities,' they said.
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