GP contracts' full cost revealed
The full cost of lucrative new contracts for GPs in the West Midlands can today be revealed.
The full cost of lucrative new contracts for GPs in the West Midlands can today be revealed.
The bumper pay rises which came in three years ago have cost Primary Care Trusts across the region tens of millions of pounds.
Wolverhampton City PCT spent an extra £9 million, Dudley PCT an additional £7 million and Walsall £3 million since 2004. GPs earn an average of more than £90,000 a year after changes and some UK doctors get £250,000 pay packets despite a cut in their out of hours work.
New performance related contracts, which came in between April and December 2004, are blamed for rising costs. The contracts came in under the Quality and Outcomes Framework.
Contracts caused a major headache for the Department of Health, which admitted last year it underestimated extra work GPs would do, resulting in a £300 million overspend.
Practices can score points for hitting targets such as the number of patients who have had a stroke receiving regular blood pressure checks and reviews.
The more points a practice gets, and the more services provided, the more money earned. Salaries were modified to reflect GPs workload and the relative health of patients in their area.
Under new rules, doctors have to record patient information to improve monitoring of those with long term conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.
Improve
Sue Turner of Wolverhampton City PCT, said the increase was due to extended services provided by GPs under new contracts.
Dr Steve Cartwright, head of the Professional Executive Committee of doctors in Dudley, said new contracts allowed GPs to manage workloads more effectively and improve patients' quality of care.
He said the contract enabled delivery of high quality services that used to be only available in hospital.
There was an increase in range and quality of services, increased rewards to practices and increased benefits to patients such as care closer to home.
Lynne Allen of Wolverhampton City PCT, said: "In Wolverhampton GPs are now providing a greater range of services to patients at the surgery and patients with long-term conditions are receiving more structured programmes of care from their practice team."
Exclusive by Stuart Pollitt
