Seven days in medicine: 1-7 February 2017
BMJ 2017; 356 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j668 (Published 09 February 2017) Cite this as: BMJ 2017;356:j668General practice
GPs call for QOF opt-out
Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the BMA’s general practitioners committee, urged NHS England to allow GPs to opt out of the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) to ease workload pressure. Nagpaul wrote in a letter to Ros Roughton, director of NHS commissioning, that GPs in England should be allowed to follow the example of their Welsh colleagues who can opt out of 75% of QOF indicators. He wrote, “Northern Ireland [has] similarly followed suit, and in Scotland QOF has ended completely. There is absolutely no doubt that practices in England are under significant workload pressures.”
Number of GPs falls
The number of full time GPs in England has fallen by 96 despite government promises to expand the workforce by 5000 before 2020, figures from NHS Digital showed. Full time equivalent GPs totalled 34 495 in September 2016, down 0.3% from 34 592 a year earlier. Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the BMA’s GP committee, said, “These figures clearly demonstrate that the crisis in general practice is getting worse, not better.”
NHS performance
Waiting times soar
The number of people waiting more than 18 weeks for hospital treatment in …
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