Lansley plans NHS revolution
By politics.co.uk staff
GPs are set to be handed swathes of responsibility for managing patient services as the coalition government turns its back on NHS administrators.
An imminent health white paper is reportedly set to include plans to wind down primary care trusts, which currently organise service provision at the local level, and strategic health authorities which do so at the regional level.
In their place around 500 groups of GPs covering 8,000 practices across England will be handed control of managing local services, it has been reported.
They will be expected to provide out-of-hours care and made responsible for deciding which hospital their patient should be sent to for treatment.
GPs will not be given a choice about the additional responsibility as health secretary Andrew Lansley slashes red tape – and saves money by scrapping thousands of administrator jobs.
It is not clear whether GPs’ salaries will be increased as a result. They will receive up to £80 million to pay for the work involved, however.
Nigel Edwards, acting chief executive of the NHS Confederation, told the Today programme that there were some “quite significant risks” in making the transition to the new system.
He said PCTs were responsible under a variety of laws for a range of duties in addition to their management of the local health budget, including planning the shape of public services, improving public health and holding local hospitals to account.
“This is quite a major shift because the end product of these reforms probably is going to end up looking more like the gas and telecoms market than the NHS we’ve been used to,” he said.
“The concept here is lots of individual decisions by GPs, which can be added up and will create a market dynamic. GPs will help plan services and direct the strategy by telling hospitals what they’re going to need.”
Mr Lansley’s white paper is expected next week.
