19.01.11
‘Pace of reforms driving PCTs into the ground’
PCTs are “imploding” according to the BMA, which has responded to the publication of the health select committee’s critical report on NHS reform.
The committee, chaired by former Tory health secretary Stephen Dorrell, criticised the pace and implementation of the reforms despite agreeing with the shift to GP commissioning, as reported on NHE.com yesterday.
Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the BMA’s GPs Committee, said: “Like the Health Committee the BMA believes that clinically-led commissioning has the potential to improve both the efficiency of the health service and the care provided to patients. However, we too are very concerned about the scale and pace of these reforms, coming as they do when the NHS also has to find up to £20 billion in efficiency savings. The speed of the reforms means Primary Care Trusts are imploding as staff leave in droves and those managers who are left are focussed on delivering the reforms rather than efficiency savings and the maintenance of patient care.”
He said the reforms make collaboration between doctors difficult because of the emphasis on competition, and said he hoped the Government took notice of clinicians’ concerns.
Sir Richard Thompson, President of the Royal College of Physicians said: “We welcome clinician-led commissioning, however hospital specialists’ involvement should be mandatory to ensure the best quality care for patients. As we argued in our evidence to the Health Select Committee’s Inquiry, we believe that systems for joint working should be built in rather than left naturally to occur. Without purposeful design, productive relationships will develop in some places and not others."
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