BMJ  2007;334:922 (5 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39202.341609.DB

News

Nearly all English general practices are set to run their own budgets

London

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

Almost all general practices in England have signed up to practice based commissioning and are preparing to draw up plans to take control of their own budgets.

Figures from the Department of Health show that as of March this year 96% of practices have been receiving incentive payments—a nationally negotiated "directly enhanced services payment" or a local alternative—which commits them to practice based commissioning.

Although the payments mean only that practices need to start planning how they will commission hospital and community services, the government wants to see all GPs adopting practice based commissioning by 2008.

The government believes that widespread use of the system will reduce admissions to hospital, because under the scheme GPs are able to keep at least 70% of the savings they make by directly commissioning services. They can then use the savings to develop specialist services within their own practices by investing in diagnostics, equipment, . . . [Full text of this article]

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