British doctors’ performances beat expectations
Britain’s family doctors are delivering a high quality service that beats expectations, health experts said after the launch on Wednesday of a new database providing details of how GP surgeries are performing.
The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) measures general practitioners (GPs) performances on a range of issues such as appointment times and tackling common chronic diseases like Diabetes Mellitus or coronary Heart Disease.
Introduced last year as part of the new GP contract, doctors receive bonus payments based on points awarded for the services they deliver.
On average, each GP practice achieved 91 percent of the points available or 959 out of a possible 1050 points.
The Department of Health said it meant that practices would be rewarded for what they achieved with patients, not just the volume of work they did.
“I congratulate GPs on their achievement,” health minister Lord Warner said.
“The high scores show that the new GP contract we put in place last year is proving successful in giving practices a real incentive to improve the quality of care for NHS patients and to provide a wide range of services locally.”
The NHS Alliance, the organisation representing more than 90 percent of Primary Care Trusts, said the results were higher than expected and would cost the government around 200 million pounds more than had been planned.
“We should all be proud of what GPs and primary care have achieved. General practice in this country is the envy of the world and we should celebrate it,” NHS Alliance chairman Dr. Michael Dixon said.
In all 8,486 GP practices took part in the scheme, covering 99.5 percent of all patients. A surgery scoring an average QOF score would receive about 74,299 pounds extra, the Department of Health said.
“These are outstanding results and first and foremost they are good news for patients,” Dr. Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee said.
He added that practices getting low scores were not necessarily providing a low quality service because of the way the points were earned.
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