UK GP's oppose NHS managers' automatic rights to purchasing

UK doctors are strongly opposed to Primary Care Trust managers automatically getting roles – including purchasing posts – in new GP commissioning groups. That was the finding of a poll of 257 GPs and Primary Care Trust managers, Strategic Health Authority and practice-based commissioning managers conducted by National Health Service Networks. A white paper by the Department of Health gives details of how the purchasing of healthcare will devolve from Whitehall to GPs, who will be responsible for an annual budget of £80 billion.

Consortia of GP practices will commission most NHS services for their patients and manage the combined commissioning budgets of their member GP practices. Primary Care Trust managers currently manage GP services and commission care from hospitals, but these trusts will be abolished by 2014.  In a separate survey, also by NHS Networks, more than 90 per cent of GPs agreed with the proposition that “good” managers would get jobs in the emerging commissioning consortia. Only 60 per cent of Primary Care Trust managers showed the same degree of optimism. “We will need the skills and experience of many of these managers,” one GP said.

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