Fund GPs to deal with work arising from private referrals, say leaders

NHS GPs must be funded appropriately for any follow-up work that arises from requests from private healthcare providers, local medical leaders have urged.The annual conference of UK local medical committees, taking place on 18-19 May in London, acknowledged that, with the NHS under severe strain, patients were increasingly seeking healthcare privately, including travelling abroad for surgery.But a five part motion passed in full instructed the BMA’s GP committees of the four UK nations to work with authorities to ensure that “any involvement in a patient’s care by an NHS GP as requested by a private healthcare or insurance provider should be remunerated appropriately.”Proposing the motion, David Reid, from Forth Valley LMC in Scotland, said that stretched practices were too often having to “pick up a lot of the pieces” when patients presented to them for private referrals.He said, “General practice has long been the gatekeeper to the NHS. But I…
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