GPs may close doors to new patients in protest at pay freeze

Published on Thursday 26 April 2007 01:24

FAMILY doctors in Scotland could start closing their doors to new patients in the coming months, GPs will warn today.

A pay freeze for GPs has been condemned by the profession, whose members say morale is heading towards a new low.

Today, a British Medical Association (BMA) conference in Clydebank will hear that GPs are considering whether they can keep taking on new patients with no extra money.

They say the freeze set by the government effectively means a 6 per cent cut in pay.

Last month, Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, unveiled below-inflation pay rises for health staff, including zero for GPs.

Andy Kerr, the Scottish health minister, insisted the pay awards struck "a balance between fairness and discipline in the fight against inflation".

But Dr Dean Marshall, chairman of the BMA's Scottish GPs committee, said GP practices were now being put under considerable financial pressure.

"GPs are individual contractors to the NHS and their businesses work on profit and loss. This pay freeze is essentially a 6 per cent loss to us," he said.

The new contract allowed GPs to opt out of providing out-of-hours cover, as well as introducing financial incentives for good practice, which have pushed the pay of many above the 100,000 mark. But Dr Marshall said this good work was now being undone.

While it had not happened yet, GPs might soon have to stop taking on patients.

"Most GPs don't want to do that because they care for their patients," he said. "But in the next few months, once GPs have put their business plans together, we could see GPs closing their lists because it does not make financial sense to keep taking on more patients."

Margaret Watt, the chairwoman of the Scottish Patients' Association, claimed GPs were "blackmailing" patients. "They are holding us to ransom by saying they will close their lists. It is obscene," she said.

Shona Robison, for the SNP, said the new GP contract had been substantially resourced and services should be expanding, not reducing. "I think the view of the public is that GPs have got a good deal and we need to make sure they are delivering on that," she said.

A Labour spokeswoman said the party valued the work that GPs and other staff did and they had been rewarded.

• The Department of Health apologised yesterday after a security lapse in the government's controversial application website for junior doctors revealed personal details about applicants, including addresses, telephone numbers, convictions, sexual orientation and religion, for several hours.