50 GP practices join radical NHS revamp

GPs across Oldham are set to make decisions about the way health services are delivered and paid for in their area as part of a massive Government overhaul of the NHS.

They have signed up to controversial health reforms that critics claim will lead to back-door privatisation of the NHS.

The Government is abolishing primary care trusts and £80billion of work “commissioning” care will be transferred to groups of family doctors from 2013.

Ministers believe GPs are best placed to understand patients’ needs and to decide where money should be spent.

Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday announced the second wave of consortias, including one in Oldham which will cover 50 GP practices serving 238,500 patients.

Dr Ian Wilkinson , chair of the Commissioning for Oldham Group, said : “I am pleased that the Commissioning for Oldham Group has been accepted in the second wave of organisations who will take forward the new commissioning arrangements.

“The group is now developing proposals for an Oldham GP commissioning consortium, working with all GP practices, NHS Oldham, local partners, patients and the public, as well as the National Commissioning Board. We look forward to being able to announce how our planning is going shortly.”

Mr Cameron says the reforms will make net savings within two years, improve services and mean local priorities are put first.

But the heads of six health unions raised “extreme concerns” about the changes, arguing they will lead to commercial competition between the NHS and private companies.

Critics, including Labour, also insist it will lead to privatisation by the back door because GPs will end up outsourcing the work.

And a damning report from MPs says the plans introduce “significant institutional upheaval” to the NHS

Ministers have failed to show the plans represent the most efficient way of delivering good patient care, while some risks to the health service will increase, said the cross–party Commons Health Committee.

MPs said they were surprised by the significant policy shift between what the coalition promised to do in May and the plans set out in its health white paper in July.

The coalition programme outlined an “evolution” of existing bodies in the NHS but the white paper “proposes a disruptive reorganisation of the institutional structure of the NHS which was subject to little prior discussion and not foreshadowed in the coalition programme”.

Shauna Dixon , chief executive of NHS Oldham, which will be abolished under the reforms, said: “Becoming a pathfinder organisation is a good endorsement of the hard work done so far by the Commissioning for Oldham Group.

“NHS Oldham is fully supporting GPs in Oldham as we jointly manage the changes to the ways in which health services are commissioned.

“The Commissioning for Oldham Group was set up in 2007 to enable GPs across Oldham to have a greater influence on shaping new services and redesigning clinical care to transfer it into community settings.

“GPs in Oldham now have a further opportunity to transform local health care through the commissioning consortium.”