The Government has accepted or partially accepted the majority of
recommendations made by the Committee in its Future of
General Practice report, published last
year.
Ministers accepted outright: the need to ensure that trainee GPs
are distributed across the country to support areas facing the
greatest challenges in ensuring access to a GP; the need
to simplify how patients interact with the NHS with improved
access; increased organisational support for GPs with a focus on
back-office functions.
However, the Government rejected a number of measures set
out by MPs that were intended to restore the doctor-patient
relationship. A call to acknowledge a decline in continuity of
care and make reversing it a priority was partially accepted
however a recommendation for a national measure of continuity of
care was rejected. A further call for NHS England to champion the
personal list model was also rejected. In its Response, the
Government says it is for practices to decide the best way to
meet the needs of patients. In their report MPs had warned
that care based on a doctor-patient relationship was
essential for patient safety and patient experience, while access
to a GP should not be like phoning a call-centre or booking a cab
driver never to be seen again.
Health and Social Care Committee Chair said:
“We welcome the Government’s very positive response to many of
our recommendations on general practice. It should help relieve
the burden on GPs and improve access for patients. A number of
issues that our inquiry examined have been addressed by the
Government in its plan to recover access to primary care.
“What’s disappointing is that Ministers have rejected a series of
measures intended to restore the doctor-patient relationship
to the heart of general practice. The inquiry heard strong
evidence to support continuity of care and we hoped to see NHS
England championing the personal-list model as one way to help
achieve that.”
