GPs: Let us charge for appointments

GPS want to be allowed to charge patients for routine appointments.

The idea of a ‘token’ fee to deter people from making unnecessary visits to surgeries will be debated at a conference of doctors this week.

Although a fee is unlikely to be introduced any time soon, many believe it to be the only way forward. It will be debated by senior GPs at the Local Medical Committee conference in Edinburgh on Thursday following a proposal from doctors in Shropshire.

Their motion states that previous attempts to ‘manage capacity’ have failed and the most effective way of doing this would be to impose a ‘token charge for GP consultations’. The elderly or those with low incomes would be ‘reimbursed’ for the charges, they add.

City and Hackney Local Medical Committee is also proposing a charge on patients for minor surgery and out-of-hours appointments.

It argues that patients would benefit by being able to access care that isn’t currently available on the NHS.

GPs attending the conference will vote on the two proposals and if the majority are in favour, they will become the official policy of the British Medical Association, the doctors’ union.

The BMA would then lobby the Government to enforce the charges as part of GPs’ contracts.

It is likely the fees would be met with opposition but a growing number of doctors say they are the only way of ensuring surgeries are properly funded. In 201 – at the same conference – GPs rejected a proposal that patients be charged £25 per appointment. It was fiercely opposed by the Patients Association.