Let GPs offer services privately if not available on NHS, say LMCs

GPs should be able to offer their patients private healthcare services that are not routinely offered or easily accessible on the NHS, representatives have voted.A motion passed at the annual UK local medical committees conference in London on 19 May noted that, unlike dentists and pharmacists, GPs cannot currently offer many private services to their NHS patients. The conference agreed that GP surgeries should at their discretion “be allowed to offer their NHS patients paid-for services if these services are not routinely offered by the NHS” or if they are routinely offered by the NHS but are “not accessible in a time frame that the patient deems reasonable.”Stefan Kuetter, of Buckinghamshire LMC, who proposed the motion, said that although he understood concerns about a two tier system it already existed and GPs were “not the architects” of it.“We can bury our heads in the sand, but our patients are already…
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