Representatives of Scottish GPs have called for the BMA to put more resources into its Scottish Office in the form of staff and parliamentary and press advice to give greater strength to their negotiators.

At the General Medical Services Committee last week the chairman of the Scottish GMSC, Dr Brian Keighley, said that the revolutionary white paper on the health service in Scotland, Designed to Care, was “the first concrete example of devolution. We must make sure that it works for us and our patients, and that we are not divided and ruled.”

For the first time GPs' terms and conditions of service will differ in England and Scotland, but he hoped that this could be turned to GPs' advantage. As soon as one country negotiated an advantageous arrangement the appropriate GMSC chairman would demand changes to redress the balance. The government would find it difficult to counter such an argument.

Primary care trusts will be established almost immediately in Scotland, but the biggest difference is that Scottish GPs will have no direct say in how hospital …