Downing Street Says

Asked if the Prime Minister felt that there should be any ceiling or limit on the amount that GPs could earn, and also how long did he think people could "hold their nerve" for with regards to service reform, the PMOS replied that as the BMA made clear this morning, the number of doctors who were earning the sort of money mentioned was very small. The average salary was below £100,000. In principle, what the Prime Minister believed was that the Health Service should be judged on performance, and those working for the NHS, as elsewhere, should be judged on performance. The situation now was that GPs had not only caught up in their pay, which was a traditional problem, and it had resulted in a 68% increase in doctors in training, which was a good thing. GPs were also offering a much wider range of treatments, which were not only minor injuries etc which hospitals traditionally had to deal with, but it was also about being proactive and taking on a whole new lifestyle agenda. That in turn would result in fewer patients going to hospital.

It had, therefore, to be seen in context of GPs both catching up in terms of salary, but also offering a wider range of services which was for the public good and for the NHS. The same criteria for performance was what should apply throughout the NHS. The PMOS said that it was also important to note that as the Prime Minister had said in his speech today, whenever the number of job losses were talked about, they had to be set against the context of an increase of 300,000 new staff since 1997, and 138 new hospitals.

Asked again if there should be a ceiling on the salary, the PMOS said doctors should be paid according to their performance and according to their contract which was negotiated three years ago. Equally, what should be recognised was the benefit to the NHS and therefore to the patients of the increased services that GPs were now offering to them.

Asked if it was the Government’s view that it was good that GPs earned a lot of money, or rather, had there been a miscalculation in the contract, and they were now being renegotiated, the PMOS said that the Government’s view was that historically, GPs, along with other doctors and nurses, had been underpaid in comparison with others. Therefore, there was a retention problem, and all the problems of motivation and morale that there had been. The PMOS said that we had now addressed that issue. If GPs increased the range of their services, they should rewarded accordingly.

Asked again how long people had to hold their nerve for with regards to service reform, the PMOS replied that if people looked at the number of new hospitals (138), the number of new staff (300,000), or at waiting lists which in 1997 were over a million, and in patient waiting lists were at 250,000. Now, if people looked at where those had gone, they would see the vast reductions that there had been in waiting lists, both in general and for particular problems such as heart disease etc. People could therefore see the vast improvements there had been, and it therefore meant that people were not waiting, but rather, were seeing the changes. The PMOS also pointed out that 70% of patients surveyed said that they had a positive view of the NHS as they had experienced it. In terms of perception, there was a problem, and we recognised that, but in terms of actual experience, 70% of patients had a positive view.

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» Tuesday, April 18, 2006

NHS

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