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Debate between Andrew Smith and Bob Ainsworth(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Ainsworth
The GPs will deny that there is any profit and will say that they provide an enhanced service for which the customers pay. But if there is profit in the partnership at the end of the year, it returns to the doctor, so potentially there is a profit, and that would clearly be in breach of the contract. People could be provided with access to their GP services without any enhanced charges, but GPs, because they have chosen to enter into the contracts, are passing the costs on to their patients.
Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this important debate, on an issue that my constituents, in Risinghurst in particular, have raised with me. I commend his suggestion to the Minister that renewed guidance be issued. Could the Department not send out with it a legally watertight template letter that any GP practice that is genuinely worried about its legal status regarding its present contract could use, to change to the cheaper alternatives that he has mentioned?
Mr Ainsworth
That is a good idea. If the Minister communicates with GPs again, he should do so in the strongest of terms, because it is clear that well over 10%—the estimated figure is 13%—of GPs have totally ignored the Department of Health to date. They are determined to continue not to pick up the costs of the systems that they have put in place and to pass them on.