The Health Secretary may be considering plans to 'nationalise GPs' in a bid to increase their workload and keep patients out of hospital, it's being reported.
Sajid Javid reportedly has a number of radical changes in front of him which would include amending the 70-year-old structure of the NHS, causing family doctors to become directly employed by hospitals instead of running their own surgeries.
Mr Javid has reportedly instructed Boris Johnson that there are “considerable drawbacks” to the system under which GP surgeries are in effect independent contractors paid per patient by the NHS, reports The Times.
It's unclear as to whether the measures would impact just England.
Under the terms of a review planned by Mr Javid, GPs will be considered for better integration with hospital care.
It's been reported that the changes may do more to stop people developing serious illness.
Rather than a state takeover of GPs by force, The Times' source says that they are likely to be incentivised to make the move out of choice.
Other possible reforms for the NHS include reviewing hospital management to hold NHS chiefs more closely to account.
It's also been reported in The Times that Mr Javid is looking at “academy style” hospitals to start taking over GPs.
In a letter to the Prime Minister about his plans, according to The Times he said he had “an ambitious agenda that has the potential to be a central plank of your domestic policy legacy”.
Other reported ideas were “new National Vaccination Service” to free surgeries from the need to give Covid booster jabs, meaning non-medical vaccinators employed during the pandemic could instead give routine immunisations.
In the letter, seen by The Times, Javid said: “Whilst there are some strengths to the system of primary care, it’s also clear that the historic separation of general practice from the wider healthcare system as created in 1948 comes with considerable drawbacks including an underinvestment in prevention.”
The head of the Royal College of GPs Martin Marshall stold The Times: “There has to be a very good reason for changing a model that works well."
