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GPs are making 'gentlemen's agreements' not to poach each others' patients
Last updated at 22:50pm on 03.07.08
Accusation: Health Minister Ben Bradshaw says GPs have a 'gentlemen's agreement' not to accept each other's patients
Some family doctors are denying choice by making ' gentlemen's agreements' not to take on each other's patients, a health minister said today.
Ben Bradshaw said they were blocking the Government's patient choice agenda by making it impossible for people to change if they were unhappy with their GP.
He made the allegation on the day he outlined plans to reform the way GPs are paid, saying the current system 'dampened the incentive' to attract new patients.
He said it allowed very small practices to survive and that one surgery - which he didn't name - in the South of England had only two patients.
It is not the first time doctors have been accused of standing in the way of NHS reform.
Three years ago it emerged that many GPs were refusing to allow patients to book appointments more than two days ahead, against the spirit of Labour's drive to improve access to primary care.
Ministers and the British Medical Association, the doctors' trade union, also clashed recently over extending GP opening hours.
Mr Bradshaw told the BBC that patient choice was under threat because GPs were agreeing with each other not to take each other's patients.
'There's no doubt there are some areas where gentlemen's agreements operate that mitigate against lists being open to new patients and therefore work against real patient choice,' he said.
Since a new contract in 2004, average-GP pay has shot up by 55 per cent to more than £110,000. Only a small amount is related to how many patients are on a GP's books. Mr Bradshaw wants to see this increase.
It would give GPs a financial incentive to treat more patients and encourage competition between them to provide the best services.
GP catchment areas will also be extended, making it even harder for gentlemen's agreements to work.
Last night Laurence Buckman, chairman of the BMA's GP committee, said: 'It is absolute nonsense to suggest there are gentlemen's agreements - it just doesn't happen. Nor are we going to compete for patients.'
The new strategy for primary and community care also calls for more email and telephone consultations between GPs and patients and a larger focus on preventing ill health.
Reader views (3)
I have been trying to change my doctor for the past 2 years because I am not happy with my surgery. My daughters doctor is absolutely brilliant and I know he has space but when I asked if I could change to his surgery the receptionist said that they did not do that sort of thing and anyway I already had a doctor. I then asked a hypothetical question of what would happen if I found out that my doctor was an alcoholic and came to the surgery drunk every day - her answer was that that was a matter for the surgery and not a reason to want to change doctors - frightening isn't it.
- Louie, London
Mr Bradshaw is trying to destroy public confidence and faith in doctors and reduce it to that of a Labour MP.
He should be made to name the 2 person surgery, and if he cannot he should resign.
If anyone is greedy and overpaid for what they do, he should look at his colleagues. Have you seen how many MPs are there for evening sessions 5 or 6, its hardly worth keeping the lights on
- Duncan, london
As ever this New Labour government is just thrashing about trying to attach blame on others for their own incompetence.
- Threaded, Roskilde, Denmark
