Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
GP cash rewards for cuts
Surgeries get a bonus for NOT referring patients to hospital Dodd stage return vow
FAMILY doctors are being offered “cash for cuts” bonuses for not referring patients to hospitals.
GPS could get up to 50% of NHS savings under the scheme meaning they stand to profit each time they do not refer a patient.
Family Doctor Association chief Dr Peter Swinyard said: “It means GPS are paid to not look after patients. It’s a serious dereliction of duty.”
The payouts are from clinical commissioning groups under pressure to ease the strain on hospitals. Freedom of Information responses from 181 CCGS showed a quarter offer some financial incentive to cut referrals to specialists.
Eleven of them offer a direct incentive to cut referrals to a target level, found the probe by GPS’ magazine Pulse. Of these, five – who are responsible for 1.8 million patients – have plans to give a share of savings back to the GPS, some as much as 50%.
Prof Helen Stokes-lampard of the Royal College of GPS said: “Payments to reduce referrals would erode the trust our patients have in us.
“Cash incentives based on how many referrals GPS make have no place in the NHS.”
It is not known if any GPS have accepted incentive payments. Dr Amanda Doyle of NHS Clinical Commissioners said: “Any initiative that aims to manage referrals must put patients at the heart of decisions.”
Public satisfaction with GPS is down to 65%, the British Social Attitudes survey found – its lowest level since the survey began in the 1980s.
OF FAMILY DOCTOR ASSOC.
SIR Ken Dodd vowed to get back on stage yesterday after six weeks in hospital with a chest infection.
The comic, 90, was greeted by some of his Diddymen, played by children from Liverpool Theatre School, as he left Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital for his home in nearby Knotty Ash.
He said: “Once I’ve recovered myself I’ll get back to doing the job. While I was in here I wrote some new jokes, so it should be all right.”
Sir Ken also recorded a thank-you for staff and as he left in a wheelchair, waving a trademark tickling stick, he added: “The porridge here is remarkable.”