Too much is being made of the cost of extended opening hours; the loss of £6,000 is hardly going to bankrupt any practice.
It is the principle that is the issue.
The contract was sold, to all those daft enough to vote for it, on the basis that GPs would be paid for what they did and have more control over workload, and could opt out of out-of-hours work.
In reality it is turning out to be a tool to control general practice, and the DoH is determined to use it to get our pay back to something comparable with pre-new-GMS levels.
There are more serious issues, such as the loss of patient data to a central spine, which are being ignored while we run around like headless chickens worrying about a few quid.
We either dig our heels in now, or accept that we will soon be doing anything, no matter how daft, just to get our points - anyone fancy standing on their head and whistling 'Colonel Bogey' for 60 quality points? I suspect there are many GPs who would. Of course they would be able to go on a training course first and put it in their appraisal, so that would be a win/win situation wouldn't it?
Dr Paul Rhodes, Burnley, Lancashire.
