GPs might drop out of health reforms in protest over 0% pay rise

12 Apr 07
GPs might refuse to take part in major health service reforms in response to this year's zero per cent pay award.

13 April 2007

GPs might refuse to take part in major health service reforms in response to this year's zero per cent pay award.

Practices could refuse to take new patients or re-evaluate their involvement in practice-based commissioning and Choose and Book, the computerised hospital appointment booking initiative. And they might decline to take on the extra work needed to move patient care out of hospitals and into the community.

The actions were suggested in guidance from the British Medical Association, which has been mulling over the steps practices could take with its lawyers for weeks.

The BMA was keen to characterise its advice as a way for practices to safeguard patient safety and maintain cost-effectiveness.

In the face of this year's pay award and rising costs, practices had to take 'tough, business-minded decisions' to balance their books, it said. These included refusing to take part in major reforms.

'As practices struggle to balance their books in 2007/08, they will be less able and less inclined to take on work transferred from hospitals or other settings,' the guidance said.

GPs could refuse to take part in practice-based commissioning but the BMA warned that they should be aware that commissioning could then be handed to other parties, including the private sector.

BMA GPs' leader Dr Hamish Meldrum said practices were being forced into a corner. 'The decision to give GPs no extra funding at all — in effect a cut — for the year ahead will put practices all over the UK under considerable financial pressure,' he said.

'GPs care deeply about their patients and their staff. But they also care about being treated so badly by the government after they have pulled out all the stops to deliver a top quality service under the agreed terms of the new contract,' he added.

The BMA has called a meeting of frontline GPs on April 19 to gauge the mood of the profession.

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