LOCAL MP CONCERN OVER GP FUNDING

North East Cambridgeshire MP Malcolm Moss, has expressed concern following the disclosure of information that he extracted regarding the funding of GP surgeries in Cambridgeshire.

Under the Practice Based Commissioning Scheme, GP surgeries are allowed to use a maximum of 70% of any savings achieved through the innovative redesign of services. The remaining 30 per cent is for the Primary Care Trust (now known as NHS Cambridgeshire) to use at their discretion. This was confirmed by Health Minister, Ben Bradshaw MP in a parliamentary written answer to Malcolm Moss MP on 17^th November 2008.

However the situation within the NHS Cambridgeshire area is such that those practices that are under-spending and therefore making savings are outweighed by those that are overspending.

In a recent options paper NHS Cambridgeshire are proposing various options but seem to be recommending substantial changes to the way in which the scheme operates locally so that under-spending surgeries are subsidising overspending surgeries.

There are GP surgeries in Mr Moss’s constituency who are already being denied by NHS Cambridgeshire the ability to utilise the savings they have made to improve patient care.

Malcolm Moss MP said:

“Yet again patients in north Cambridgeshire are being short changed and local GP surgeries are being punished because of overspending by their contemporaries in the south. This is doubly insulting to patients in North East Cambridgeshire who are not only being denied an expansion of local NHS services but also who live in an area where health issues are greater. ”