BMJ  2008;336:1461 (28 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.a541

News

Government official wants school style inspections of general practices

Caroline White

1 London

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

GPs in England could be subject to a regime of inspection, similar to that in schools, in a bid to root out underperformance, a senior Department of Health official has suggested.

Speaking about health inequalities at the NHS Confederation’s annual conference in Manchester last week, Mark Davies, director of partnership, experience, and involvement at the health department, said that some general practices were not taking inequality seriously enough.

"There are parallels with schools," he said. "People are not afraid to tackle failing schools.

"There will be a strategy for primary care which will look at these issues," he added but declined to elaborate further.

In England, schools found on inspection to give cause for concern are either categorised as requiring special measures or given notice to improve.

The move is one of several government proposals to get tough on underperformance in the NHS, first signalled by the prime minister in . . . [Full text of this article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

School inspections for GPs?
Nigel Higson
bmj.com, 27 Jun 2008 [Full text]
And the evidence is?
David J Young
bmj.com, 28 Jun 2008 [Full text]
Access all current jobs at BMJ Group
Whats new online at Student BMJ
Listen to the latest BMJ Interview