Should GPs being given PCT responsibility?

[andyandy]

I've also just posted this on Bad Science - let's see which forum generates the best discussion

The conservatives are proposing a pretty radical shake up of the NHS....I was wondering what people thought.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jul/09/nhs-funds-distributed-doctors-reforms

My inital (uninformed) opinions are

1) some sort of over-arching localised control makes sense for co-ordinating services
2) devolving it to doctors - well, don't they have enough to do, you know, doing doctoring stuff?
3) so, won't that just mean doctors subcontracting out the coordination?
4) straight into private contractors....
5) oh, and doctors might decide that they can take a big hefty wage increase while they're at it....

What do the more informed voices of the forum think? Good idea? Bad idea? Privatisation by the (very sneaky) back door?

 

[richardm]

I'm not an informed voice, but I'm the first one here so you'll have to make do.

What happens if your GP blows their budget early on, or if some new expensive treatment appears? Does that mean no more referrals that year?

Besides this is just another attempt to introduce fundholding GPs, which foundered last time because nobody wanted to do it. This time they're going make it mandatory, which means shoving down the GPs throats whether they want it or not. Since all the indications in the past have suggested that they don't want it, it's hard to imagine that it's going to end well.

Besides, do we really want an open market in the NHS? It's not as though it's been such a stellar success in other privatised industries.

 

[andyandy]

Besides, do we really want an open market in the NHS? It's not as though it's been such a stellar success in other privatised industries.

I think the trouble is, that the Tories and their private sector cronies do want an open market. It might be bad for the country, but when has that ever mattered?

 

[Beerina]

5) oh, and doctors might decide that they can take a big hefty wage increase while they're at it....

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when e'er we practice to socialize things.

There's more to freedom than freedom of speech, and the freedom to control every last thing through Parliament.

 

[richardm]

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when e'er we practice to socialize things.

There's more to freedom than freedom of speech, and the freedom to control every last thing through Parliament.

You want to go and see a doctor about that uncontrollably jerking knee.

 

[andyandy]

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when e'er we practice to socialize things.

There's more to freedom than freedom of speech, and the freedom to control every last thing through Parliament.

Where do you stop? I'd hate for us to have a market-set approach to doctors' salaries. In any case it doesn't make sense to when the public sector pay the bill - and how do you quantify "worth" which does good rather than makes money? How much is a good nurse "worth"? A good teacher? A good social worker? They can all be priceless to some individuals - so where is the upper limit to their pay? Doctors are already well recompensed - indeed, if we actually factored in the multi-year multi tens of thousand pound investment in training provided by the state, they don't do too badly.

Freedom to have greater inequality and social division - oh what a freedom that is!

 

[Rolfe]

You guys had me really worried there. until I turned on the radio at six o'clock, and the newsreader said the proposal covered England only. I wouldn't go back there for a pension.

Rolfe.

 

[andyandy]

You guys had me really worried there. until I turned on the radio at six o'clock, and the newsreader said the proposal covered England only. I wouldn't go back there for a pension.

Rolfe.

You must have missed the announcement at about 5.30am - the conservatives are selling Scotland to a pharmaceutical conglomerate. You're now the property of Glaxo-Smith-Kline.

 

[Jekyll's Guest]

You must have missed the announcement at about 5.30am - the conservatives are selling Scotland to a pharmaceutical conglomerate. You're now the property of Glaxo-Smith-Kline.

Someone finally found a use for Scotland?

And people bad mouth the Tories, tsk.