GP contracts should be simplified to allow more “professional discretion,” says England’s health secretary

The health secretary for England will initiate a “dramatic simplification” of GPs’ contracts from April 2014, as part of his drive to improve the care that older people receive outside hospital.

Jeremy Hunt said that targets and financial incentives in the current contract needed to be streamlined to help achieve his vision to “transform the quality of care received by vulnerable older people in the NHS.” His plans include enshrining the right to a named GP for all vulnerable older people in the NHS mandate from 2014.1

Setting out his vision in a speech at the Future of Primary Care conference held by the …