New contract makes Scotland ‘most exciting place’ to be a GP
ONE of the chief architects behind Scotland’s new GP contract defended it on the eve of today’s vote, insisting it will make Scotland “the most exciting place to be a GP in the western world”.
Dr Alan McDevitt, chairman of the BMA’s Scottish General Practitioners Committee, said the new contract would reduce doctors’ workloads and the financial risks associated with owning their own premises, while improving recruitment, retention and patient care.
Speaking at a primary care conference in Edinburgh, Dr McDevitt said: “This is a great opportunity. There isn’t another one coming around the corner. Scotland is going to be the most exciting place to be a GP in the western world”.
The 40 members of the SGPC will vote on the contract today, following a poll of GPs nationally which closed on January 4. It will still have to be approved by MSPs before it can come into force in April.
There has been anger from GPs based in rural and deprived practices that the new contract’s workload-based allocation formula will cut their funding share by up to 87 per cent while practices in more affluent urban areas, with high volumes of very elderly patients, are more likely to see their incomes increase.
The BMA and Scottish Government has insisted that no practice will be left worse off as income protection payments will be used to prop up practices losing out under the formula, ensuring that their income remains steady.
Dr McDevitt said: “The Government does not want to destabilise any practices. That’s why those changes will not take resources away from any practice despite what you hear on social media.”
It comes after The Herald revealed research showing that the 68 per cent of GP partners benefiting under the new contract’s formula will receive an estimated average windfall of £10,200 each.
As independent contractors, there is nothing to prevent them pocketing this as a salary hike rather than investing it into their practices, but there has also been anger from rural and Deep End GPs – working in parts of Scotland with the largest health inequalities – that the vast majority of their partners will receive no uplift at all, or a very small rise.
Critics say that while no practice will be “worse off”, the formula will exacerbate the recruitment crisis in rural areas by increasing the gulf in potential earnings between rural and urban-based GPs.
Dr McDevitt said how GPs are paid “should be irrelevant” in the debate over the new contract.
He added: “Why on earth does everyone want to talk about how GPs get paid when we should be talking about the needs of patients?”
The new contract will be the biggest shake-up to general practice in Scotland since 2004. It promises GPs a minimum salary of £80,400, interest-free loans for premises upkeep, and removes any financial penalty for not providing out-of-hours care.
Maureen Watt, Minister for Mental Health - who stood in for Health Secretary Shona Robison at yesterday’s conference said the Scottish Government was investing £7.5 million in 2018/19 to aid recruitment and retention in remote and rural Scotland, including including payments of £10,000 to GPs taking up their first post in a rural practice and relocation packages of up to £5,000. Half of training bursaries would also be attached to rural practices, she added.
Why does everyone want to talk about how GPs get paid?