BMA Responds To Conservative Plan For GP Contract, UK

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 01 Oct 2007 - 1:00 PDT

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Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the BMA's GPs Committee, responded to the Conservative Party's plan to renegotiate the GP contract saying:

"It is sad that the Conservatives have failed to understand why we needed a new GP contract. All sides recognised that the UK had too few family doctors. Recruitment was at an all time low, and doctors were thinking of taking early retirement because of the unsustainable workload. It was not safe to ask exhausted GPs to work nights and weekends as well as in the daytime. The new GP contract has delivered better quality of care with pay linked to the standards of services provided. It is improving health outcomes for patients and in the long term will save the NHS money as fewer people will need admission to hospital because of a long term condition.

"The real solution to the problem of out-of-hours cover is for Primary Care Organisations to fund the existing providers properly instead of continually trying to cut their budgets or attempting to find even cheaper private companies to run the service. The Conservative plan to turn the clock back will not help patients overall. It is likely to force GPs into leaving general practice and will do nothing to encourage doctors to replace them."

http://www.bma.org.uk