All healthcare staff—not just GPs—should have a role in commissioning consortiums, MPs hear

The bill currently going through parliament to reform the NHS should spell out a guaranteed role for the whole general practice team on the new commissioning consortiums and not just for GPs, MPs have been told.

Witnesses appearing before MPs on the parliamentary health select committee on 8 February said the current proposal for GPs to lead the consortiums alone was unfairly exclusive to the general practice team.

There was also a danger of creating “tribalism” between GPs and hospital doctors, said witnesses speaking during the first evidence session of the committee’s follow-up inquiry into commissioning.

Committee chair Stephen Dorrell, Conservative MP for Charnwood, asked about the relationship between …