The head of the Royal College of General Practitioners has criticised GP led commissioning as a system designed with inherent tensions, which means that GPs could be perceived as having a conflict of interest.

Clare Gerada, a GP in Lambeth and chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, told a “big society” breakfast event organised by the King’s Fund: “If I get paid more to keep patients out of A&E then this needs to be very carefully managed. There is a potential conflict of interest.”

At the meeting, Patient power or professional capture, she said that patient choice needs to be put into the context of a cash-strapped NHS. “We don’t live in a society where there are unlimited resources so GPs need to balance the needs of the patient …