Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said he is planning to announce a failure regime for GPs. This follows the new failure regime applied to NHS hospitals which allows commissioners to place hospitals in “special measures” in order to fix significant concerns regarding patient care or the way a hospital is run.
Mr Hunt is also introducing transparency to GP salaries alongside Ofsted-style inspections for GP surgeries stating it is “so the public can see if they have high salaries and poor service.” He added that “this transparency will make [failures] untenable” saying that he doesn’t want “any loopholes. Transparency is always uncomfortable. People will get used to it, but it needs to be linked to outstanding performance. What’s happening is that GP’s have been starved of resources because of the innate suspicion that any more money would be creamed off into higher salaries. The only way to prevent this is transparency.”
It will be interesting to see how the regime will be implemented and further information will follow in due course.
