GP commissioning

doi:10.1136/bmj.b2526

Published 23 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2526
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2526

Letters

Conservative Party on health

GP commissioning

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

In his editorial on the Conservative Party’s health policies,Ham asks how family doctors will be motivated to commissionservices.¹ The simple answer for many of us is, give us a systemin which we can meaningfully commission.

During fundholding, we abolished our waiting lists, transformedour previously inadequate mental health service, set up newservices such as practice based physiotherapy and cardiac rehabilitation,and brought about rapid change in several services providedby our regional hospital, such as day case cataract surgeryand access to termination of pregnancy. And it was cheaper forthe taxpayer and returned substantial sums to the health authority.At the time we advised patients to cancel their private healthcover as it had few benefits over the NHS service we could offerthem.

Several years into practice based commissioning, we are stillwaiting for any serious act of commissioning to take place,let alone . . . [Full text of this article]

Steve J Hawkins, general practitioner¹

¹ Upper Surgery, Truro TR3 6ET

steve.hawkins@27lemst.cornwall.nhs.uk