The handover of general practice commissioning responsibilities to CCGs from NHS England has been 'chaotic and rushed', an NHS advisor has said.
Dr Michael Dixon, College of Medicine chair and NHS England clinical champion for social prescribing, said CCGs were best placed to commission primary care services but had encountered a ‘back wind’ against them with financial constraits and a lack of support.
The handover of general practice commissioning responsibilities to CCGs from NHS England has been 'chaotic and rushed', an NHS advisor has said.
Dr Michael Dixon, College of Medicine chair and NHS England clinical champion for social prescribing, said CCGs were best placed to commission primary care services but had encountered a ‘back wind’ against them with financial constraits and a lack of support.
Speaking at the Westminster Health Forum, he said: ‘CCGs commissioning primary care are poised to deliver but they've had an enormous backwind against them and that's not to mention the fairly dire financial system the health service is in at the moment.
‘First of all, according to the research reports, the transfer to CCGs was very chaotic and rushed and they didn't have sufficient resources and weren't given proper support by NHS England.’
He said that this comes as half of all CCGs now have fully delegated responsibility for commissioning general practice in their areas but he added that more needs to be done to ensure the other half follows suit.
In the same speech, Dr Dixon said all GPs are likely to go salaried in the future as young doctors increasingly choose not to take up partnerships, but he added that primary care will lose an ‘enormous amount’ when that happens.
He said there is currently a good balance with GPs ‘running the show’ while being ‘shackled by contracts and performance indicators that makes sure that we do the NHS's bidding’.
But he said young doctors don’t want to be come partners as they can make ‘much more money by being salaried GPs’.
He said: ‘I think we will become salaried but I think we will lose an enormous amount if we do because I think, again, we'll lose the dynamics which this room has expressed as important of having your doctor, your advocate, your bloke that's there for 35 years that you can muster.’
Earlier in his speech Dr Dixon took a straw poll to see how many people had a GP that they saw regularly and how many people would like to have a regular GP.
It was found that four people out of approximately 160 delegates have a regular GP, while 80% would like one.
