Contractor Model: Dr Irvine and Nhs Spending

contractor model: Dr Irvine said the effect can be clearly seen from a decline in the proportion of NHS spending allocated specifically to general practice, which has dwindled from 9 per cent in 2005/6 to a record low of 6.8% by 2017/18, according to The Independent. Health chiefs 'suppressed' report revealing profiteering in deprived GP practices In a submission to the Scottish Parliament's Health and Sport Committee, which will take evidence on the future of primary care on Tuesday, Dr Irvine stressed that most of the GPs she has encountered during research are extremely hard-working, ethical and committed to their patients . However, she said the independent contractor model - which means GP partners run their practices like small, private businesses - has protected them from scrutiny over how taxpayers' money is used. Retired public health consultant and Scottish Government adviser, Dr Helene Irvine, said the current system has deterred governments from investing the sums needed into general practice because of the risk that GPs can use the funds to boost practice profits and increase their own take-home pay. She wrote I believe the public would be very interested in this component of the NHS if they actually knew more about how the independent contractor model works, including the fact that GP partners themselves decide how much they work, how much to spend on service provision and how much to they spend on their own income, and what are the associated problems of these freedoms. Another less obvious problem with the independent contractor model is that it is very difficult for any government, via the health boards or Health and Social Care Partnerships to invest in general practice...without risking leakage of that additional investment into personal incomes that do not correlate with workload, patient satisfaction or outcomes. An obvious problem is the extremely wide variation in both performance and personal income of GPs, with no measurable relationship between what the GPs earn and the work they do, and the outcomes for patients. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.