08.02.17
BMA praises ‘vital and tangible improvements’ in new GP contract
GPs and NHS negotiators have praised changes to the General Medical Services contract in England for 2017-18, with both sides agreeing that the new contract will alleviate pressure on overstretched doctors.
The new contract for GPs, amounting to an investment of £238.7m, was agreed between NHS Employers on behalf of NHS England and the BMA’s GP Committee (GPC). After the GPC “overwhelmingly voted to accept” the changes, the contract will now take effect from 1 April.
Stephen Golledge, chief negotiator for NHS Employers, said: “The agreed changes will deliver considerable improvements in the quality of care provided to patients and reduce bureaucracy for GP practices, alongside a significant increase in the level of investment in primary care.
“Such an increase will help to alleviate some of the pressures GPs have experienced in recent years.”
The contract renegotiation includes several benefits for GPs, including a pay uplift of 1%, an extra £1m investment in the GP retention scheme, and an extra £2m payment to practices for workload related to the transfer of patient records.
Other changes include practice cover for GPs’ parental leave and sickness absence, the complete reimbursement of a practice’s CQC fees – which the BMA has consistently branded a “merciless raid of ring-fenced budget” – and a freeze to the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), with a working group set up to discuss its future after April 2018.
The organisations also agreed new contractual requirements around identification and management of frail patients, registration of prisoners, healthcare access, vaccination and immunisations and data collection.
The BMA praised the deal, arguing that it will secure much-needed income to address GP practice expenses and reduce bureaucracy.
“We believe that these contract changes deliver tangible improvements in a number of vital areas that will benefit practices from greater core resources, reimbursement of expenses and a reduction in bureaucratic workload,” said the union’s GPC chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul in a letter to all GPs in England outlining the changes.
“We are now working on detailed guidance with NHS Employers to provide more detail about some of these areas.”
While the BMA welcomed the tangible benefits of the contract, it nevertheless warned that the contractual changes alone will not solve the crisis facing general practice caused by “wider pressures”, such as a critical GP shortage, inadequate NHS funding and a soaring and excessively bureaucratic workload.
The BMA is understood to be in discussion with NHS England and the Department of Health on tackling these wider issues, such as by ensuring that NHS England honours the commitments made in its GP Forward View published in April last year, along with furthering its Urgent Prescription for General Practice proposals.
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