“Exorbitant” regulator fee rises will damage patient care, warns BMA

Doctors’ leaders have warned that “exorbitant” and “inexplicable” planned rises in the fees that GPs and hospitals have to pay to England’s healthcare regulator amount to a “raid” on overstretched NHS budgets. They say that the rises could undermine the care of patients and threaten the future of small general practices.

The Care Quality Commission has been consulting on its fee rises since November, for implementation in April 2016.1

It has proposed that charges for a general practice operating at one location that …