CCG warning for doctors from BMA
pharmafile | September 27, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing | BMA, CCG, NHS, doctors
GPs have been urged to scrutinise the small print of the new clinical commissioning group (CCG) constitutions before they sign on the dotted line.
The BMA warns doctors that some of the documents are more than 100 pages long and says GP practices are “being pressured to sign constitutions at short notice”.
CCGs are a crucial part of the NHS’s new look: set up under the Health and Social Care Act to control most of the NHS’s budget, 212 CCGs, run largely by GPs and other health professionals, will replace the existing 152 primary care trusts from next April.
The idea behind them is that local clinicians lead on grassroots health services, which means that pressure will be taken off A&E operations, for example.
But BMA GPs committee deputy chair Richard Vautrey said: “Many GPs and practices are still reporting that they are being presented with documents into which they have had very little input, if any at all, and they are being invited to sign it without enough time to be able to consider what is in it and whether they agree with it.”
The BMA – which was opposed to the coalition’s radical reforms of the NHS – says it is still concerned about the speed of the process.
Vautrey concluded that doctors should raise any concerns with their local medical committee (LMC) or CCG and “simply not just accept as default the constitution that they have been presented with”.
However, the BMA has also expressed concern that LMCs are being sidelined by CCGs. It says that:
- One LMC was told by a CCG that its participation would be limited to that of a lay person or equal to that of a member of the public
- Another was discounted by the CCG as correspondence sent to stakeholders fails to mention its role
- And two members were elected to a CCG board unopposed ‘through a simple show of hands in a closed meeting consisting of the old practice-based commissioning consortium’.
One of the issues GP leaders are discussing with the NHS Commissioning Board is how to gauge input from a CCG’s constituent GP practices as a condition for authorisation.
“These are membership organisations and therefore there needs to be demonstrable sign-up and support,” says GP negotiator Chaand Nagpaul.
“We have no clarity as to how they are going to be assessing these individual applications in the absence of signatures, in the absence of explicit sign-up or support. We are in dialogue, waiting for some clarity,” Nagpaul added.
Despite the BMA’s concerns, the government is convinced that nascent CCGs are already having a positive effect: in July the NHS Clinical Commissioners (NHSCC) group published 12 case studies demonstrating how CCGs were already improving patient care.
Adam Hill
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