GP Fundholders

[Steph*]

I've got a couple of questions about GP Fundholders. I've read a lot about how the government are/were encouraging GPs to become Fundholders... are most GPs fundholders now then? Or are there still a lot who aren't?

Also, what are the pros and cons of the fundholding scheme?

Would I be wrong in thinking that the "old" system was better (from the view of the patient) ?

Thanks.

Steph x

[kiya]

Fundholding isn't new - it was introduced at the beginning of the 1990s (by the Conservatives), abolished in 1999 (by Labour) and reintroduced recently (by Labour) under a new name "Practice Based Commissioning".

I'm not sure how much it will directly affect patient care (or patient perceptions of care - slightly different matter). I had no idea what the uptake of PBC was, so searched the DoH site... in October this year, 1/3 of practices had commissioned one or more new services through PBC and less than half had agreed a commissioning plan with their PCT. 31% of GPs said PBC hadn't improved patient care (13% that it had).

It's like all these things: illusion of doing something and no actual improvement. A bit like "patient choice" under Choose & Book - GPs used to be able to refer their patients to any hospital (with the agreement of the hospital involved) and now have a limited selection of a few local hospitals.

[dsn]

Skim reading this... I suspect the impact of PbC is very much specific to what provision there is by NHS secondary care etc. in the area. I know some practices have done a lot of research in to all this... because I've been excel-ling away at it for some time.