Call for shake up in NHS funding: Few GPs among the 900 Doctors for Reform

doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7547.973-b

BMJ 2006;332:973 (22 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7547.973-b

Letter

Call for shake up in NHS funding

Few GPs among the 900 Doctors for Reform

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Of the 900 doctors who signed up to support aninsurance based funding for a national health service, onlythree are general practitioners and no one claims to be workingin the discipline of public health.¹

It can be no coincidence that the majority of those who supportthis reform are hospital specialists—those who are mostlikely to benefit from an insurance-based system, in which usersof health care can access whatever specialist they think theyneed, and however many, until they get an opinion or treatmentthey want. This leads to a consumerist and demand driven healthcare (more cosmetic procedures), not one that is based on need(health promotion and public health interventions, for example).

Insurance based systems favour supplier-induced demand, as wellas high-cost curative procedures with little impact on longterm health outcome and even less in terms of public health.

Let's not forget . . . [Full text of this article]

Richard Ma, general practitioner

Village Practice, London N7 7JJ richard.ma@btinternet.com