Prescriptions

[AndyT]

I'm only on a mobile at the mo so can't check easily but GP services are commissioned by NHS England. I can't remember if it's at Area Team or Regional Team. Your local Health and Wellbeing Board sounds as if it might be the place to go but I think they have a different function. I think the Care Quality Commission does not cover GPs.
It's all been changed so much that I really don't think many people know how it ought to work. How it actually works is something we must wait to find out.

 

[Jacob]

.......
It's all been changed so much that I really don't think many people know how it ought to work. How it actually works is something we must wait to find out.

It's being fragmented quite deliberately. Run it into the ground and sell it off bit by bit, the most profitable bits first.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

.......
It's all been changed so much that I really don't think many people know how it ought to work. How it actually works is something we must wait to find out.

It's being fragmented quite deliberately. Run it into the ground and sell it off bit by bit, the most profitable bits first.

Jacob, the government can't sell off GP practices. They are already private enterprises that contract to do NHS work, and that's always been the case, so far as I know (somebody will correct me if I've got that wrong).

 

[AndyT]

CC you are correct that GP practices are essentially small businesses. That was the compromise to get them onside when the NHS was formed, 65 years ago.


What has changed this time round (ie since April this year) is that the new Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) which buy services from hospitals etc are obliged to offer the work to "any qualified provider" which can mean a private sector company such as Virgin Healthcare etc.


I don't want to take this thread off into a discussion of whether the intention of our MPs is to make things better or worse. This forum has a 'no politics' rule and I've been careful to keep to matters of fact, not opinion.

 

[finneyb]

Thought this was relevant
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23374000

'Doctors have been urged to change how they prescribe medicines to stop £300m of drugs being thrown away each year.'

Brian