Smoke, Mirrors and GP Contracts.

Do you remember that pious bill that got passed in 2004 about smoking in public places? The one that was meant to be good for our health? Well, amidst all the back slapping and congratulations, a wee section slipped through unnoticed called 'Joint Ventures'. This was a change to the GP contract and on a first inspection it looked like it was a good deal for GPs. However, it wasn't. Before 'Joint Ventures', health boards arranged direct contracts with GPs and GP practices. What this contract says is that the health board can arrange a contract with a 'health care provider'. This could be anything from a GP to a multinational company. Yep, you've guessed it. Multinational companies want to buy up our GP practices and run them for their own profit. This has been going on in England for quite some time and it's basically very bad news for anyone going to the doctor who's ill. Because chronically ill patients cost money to look after, these practices don't want them, because they reduce the profits for shareholders. This means that cherry picking is inevitable. These practices are also used as shop windows for large pharmaceutical companies, who pay big bucks to anyone who will help them meet their drugs sales targets. This means that decisions are taken less on clinical need and cost effectiveness, and more on profit. So it's bad news all round.

The first attempt to introduce this in Scotland was in my neck of the woods; Hartill GP practice in Lanarkshire. The partners had fallen out, and NHS Lanarkshire prepared a tender paper that allowed SERCO, which is a utilities company, to bid. Many protests, letters to the Herald and tackety boots later, they backed down. But you can expect to see more of this from now on. See all these shiny new health centres that are being built? This is a subtle way of removing GPs from their own premises, to one that is owned by the health board or PFI consorti. This then makes it very difficult to protest, if they bring these companies in.
Carolyn Leckie was trying to get through a bill to reverse this. Are there any good MSPs out there, who will run with this, now that she is out of office?
In the meantime, give up smoking everyone. You don't want to fall ill in case your GP refuses to treat you on grounds of ill health..