13.03.12
RCGP seeks to end ‘polarising’ reform debate
The Royal College of GPs (RCGP) has indicated that it is willing to work with the Government to implement changes to the NHS, while still opposing the Health and Social Care Bill itself.
In a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron last week, chief executive Dr Clare Gerada expressed hope of finding an “acceptable way forward” to achieve a better service for patients.
The letter reads: “I hope you will consider the wealth of experience that the RCGP represents, and will look at ways for us to work together to make the health service secure, stable, and safe, now and in the future.”
Dr Gerada told the BBC on Tuesday that while the organisation still did not agree with the Bill, it was open to working together to achieve the best result for the NHS inEngland.
She said: “We still want this flawed bill, this complicated, complex bill to be withdrawn. But we’re not politicians, we’re doctors, and it’s the 33,000 family doctors acrossEnglandthat are going to have to make the health service work for their patients.
“The letter to the Prime Minister was one of many that we’ve written to him over the last 18 months saying ‘let’s stop polarising this debate, lets see if there’s some common ground for the sake of our patients, for the sake of the NHS’.”
The RCGP’s key concern is around competition within the NHS, something other bodies such as the BMA, RCN and RCM also oppose.
The Government has already made several amendments to the Bill, but at their spring conference on Sunday, Liberal Democrat activists voted 317 to 270 to reject a motion expressing support for those concessions, effectively signalling their opposition to the Bill as a whole.
While this vote is not binding on Government, it puts pressure on Liberal Democrat peers over whether to support the Bill when it returns to the House of Lords next week.