Get a move on
Released 07/10/2010
Are you in line with the times?
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley stuck to his guns in his speech to the Conservative Party conference earlier this week, reiterating there would be no u-turn in his plans for GP commissioning.
If all systems are go, what is everyone waiting for? The Royal College of Surgeons has wasted no time urging GP consortia to consult with them before making any drastic clinical decisions, while others in the health sector have come out of the woodwork to Practice Business when they realised our magazine is delivered to leaders in the primary sector. Yes, indeed, it's definitely the practice manager's time to shine.
A conversation today with a source from the NAPC predicted competition may well increase in primary care, and that primary care in 2012/13, won't be primary care as we know it today. Whether we'll see more practice managers working across a federation or salaried GPs employed by the state, things will certainly not stay the same.
This person from the NAPC, the original advocates of GP fundholding, mentioned that when GPs held budgets, they also got more Christmas cards. So not only should practices continue to have the kind of conversations that will eventually lead to the creation of commissioning consortia, but they should ready their reception area for the influx of Christmas cards from new suppliers and secondary care clinicians that may just come flooding in, if not this year, then definitely next.