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Health secretary’s remarks about GPs are “morale sapping,” says royal college

BMJ 2013; 347 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f5545 (Published 10 September 2013) Cite this as: BMJ 2013;347:f5545
  1. Ingrid Torjesen
  1. 1London

England’s health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has announced that one of the changes he wants to make to the current GP contract is to give every vulnerable elderly patient a named GP who would be responsible for their care. He said that under the present system hospital emergency staff know some patients better than their own GPs do.

His remarks were condemned by Clare Gerada, president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, as “disheartening and morale sapping.”

Outlining his plans for the future, Hunt said that the 2004 general medical services contract for GPs removed the historical system whereby every patient was registered with an individual, named GP, replacing it instead with a system where patients were registered only with a practice. The aim was to make it easier for patients to …

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