Remove contractual restrictions on GPs seeing patients privately, say UK LMCs

GPs should have the ability to treat patients privately ‘in the same way that other clinicians can’, UK GP leaders have said.

LMCs acknowledged during their conference last week that patients are ‘increasingly’ looking to access care privately due to ‘underfunding’ in general practice, and demanded that GPs are allowed to see their patients privately.

A motion, which was passed in all parts, instructed the BMA to ensure there are ‘no contractual restrictions’ on practices seeing private patients, ‘subject to appropriate fair systems in place’.

The four UK GP committees should also ensure that practices are not ‘unfairly penalised’ financially by seeing private patients in NHS facilities, the motion added.

Gloucestershire LMC’s Dr Ben Lees, who proposed the motion, said: ‘We’ve heard how successive governments have failed to invest in general practice funding has not matched rises in demand and more and more patients are seeking access to health care on privately funded basis.

‘As general practice has been starved of resources, the GMS contract has become a barrier to providing high quality timely care to our patients.

‘Contractors are forbidden from offering private services to our registered patients, even outside of our NHS hours and premises.

‘This archaic clause suffocates our ability to provide additional capacity and denies us the opportunity to harness private funding to care for our patients.’

Dr Gemma Eyres, from Tower Hamlets LMC, who spoke against the motion, said that this contract change would not help improve health inequalities.

She said: ‘We’re currently living in a cost-of-living crisis unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. I have patients who can’t afford to heat their homes, housing that is so poor that it’s affecting their health, rising rates in homelessness, and food banks unable to meet demand.

‘This motion will not help my patients. It will not help improve health inequalities in my area. It will not help improve GMS funding for my local practices.’

Speaking in favour of the motion, Kent LMC chair Dr Gaurav Gupta said that given the lack of core funding, GPs need to ‘look at other options’.

He said: ‘My personal view is that the NHS is probably the best way of delivering medical care to the population.

‘But sadly the NHS can also be a very toxic employer. Even more sad is the neglect of the NHS by successive governments which has led to it not just failing for its workers but also for its patients.

‘As a union, BMA’s primary responsibility is to look after its members. Many of us hold NHS principles in the highest regard, but we will be failing our members if you don’t look at other options.’

During the conference, UK LMCs also authorised the BMA’s GP committees ‘to use the threat of mass resignation to improve the NHS offer to practices’, adding that GPs ‘walking away’ from the NHS will be more powerful than collective action.

The conference also saw a passionate speech from GPC England chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, who said the expected funding uplift will not be enough to save general practice and that the threat of leaving the NHS is more likely to bring positive change.