Apr 2 2007
Responding to the Scottish Conservative Party's election manifesto launched today, Dr Dean Marshall, chairman of the BMA's Scottish General Practitioners Committee said that the Party had proposed some policies that were particularly interesting for general practice in Scotland. He said:
"Doctors will be pleased to see the Conservatives' commitment to creating a world class NHS in Scotland. Their pledge to review the service provided by NHS24 and replace it with local, clinician led units, is an interesting one which we would be keen to discuss in greater detail, particularly as such a proposal would require a significant increase in the GP workforce.
One of the key initiatives in the Conservative's plans is to give GPs a role in delivering more patient choice. Dr Marshall added:
"Doctors strongly support greater choice for patients as long as it is genuine and meaningful. GPs should have the freedom to refer their patients to the hospital or service that is right and best for their patients. In a recent BMA Scotland survey, 72% of doctors believed that offering a choice in location of treatment was not important, while 86% believed that choice about treatment options was more important for patients."
Commenting on plans to reduce patient waiting times and proposals to create a tariff based system, Dr Charles Saunders, Deputy Chairman of the BMA's Scottish Consultants Committee said:
"The pressure to meet waiting times targets can interfere with doctors' ability to treat patients according to clinical need. Too often the pressure to meet targets can detract from providing good quality care. The BMA believes that new policies should comply with the principle that patients should be treated based on their clinical need.
"A tariff system would recreate an internal market in the NHS which would in turn, create winners and losers of our local hospitals. Hospitals that lose out on the provision of elective procedures and reduced workload could end up under threat of closure.
"Scotland's unique geography only heightens our concerns that rural units would be unable to compete, on levels of price or numbers, with busier urban hospitals. Tariff systems generally ignore quality of care and fail to protect rural healthcare services."