GP plans to remove home visits ‘won’t wash’, says health secretary Matt Hancock
Health secretary Matt Hancock has said GP plans to remove home visits from their contracts “won’t wash”.
The majority of GPs supported a proposal to remove home visits from their contractual obligations at a Local Medical Committee (LMC) conference on Friday.
A local committee of doctors from Kent, working with the British Medical Association (BMA) to help shape policy, said the contracts should be changed.
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The independent body argued that “GPs no longer have the capacity to offer home visits”.
However, the health secretary said that “is not going to fly” when speaking to press earlier on Saturday.
“Of course GPs still need to do home visits, they don’t do that for the majority of cases, but some people are very frail and sometimes a home visit by a GP is necessary,” Hancock told ITV News.
“The idea you would end GPs doing home visits is not going to fly.”
The Kent Local Medical Committee called on the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee (GPC) to renegotiate the family doctors’ contracts with the NHS.
It suggested they “remove the anachronism of home visits from core contract work, negotiate a separate acute service for urgent visits, and demand any change in service is widely advertised to patients”.
Kent LMC said it was not attempting to remove home visits entirely, but wanted to change the policy to ensure suitable provision.
A separate motion for the GPC to negotiate an acute service for urgent home visits was also passed.
A Kent LMC statement said: “This motion is not intended to remove the ability of GPs to perform home visits. More complex, vulnerable and palliative patients are best served by their GP visiting them when needed.
“Currently there is no universal consistency for patients. Increasing demand and falling GP numbers are further compounding pressures in general practice.”
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The body said that more than 26m GP appointments took place in September, which is 9.7 per cent up from the year before.
“The NHS is in a cycle of transformation. Kent LMC are asking for a home-visiting service that is properly resourced and delivered to our patients,” the statement added.
Following the three-part motion passing at the conference, the GPC will now negotiate on the policy changes with NHS England.