Scottish GPs have voted to remove QOF from the GP contractual negotiations, with the chair of the Scottish GPC calling for it to be made “more flexible to communities’ needs” instead.
Delegates at the Scottish LMCs conference have voted for a motion that said that the QOF has delivered improvements “but [conference] feels… these aspects of care should be separated from GP practice income”.
Proposing the motion, which was carried, Dr Neil MacRitchie of Grampian LMC said that it had achieved a lot.
However, he added, it had become “a target for every interest group to try and influence”, with too many diseases being included in the framework.
He said: “In any new contracts, I would suggest we might want to keep the good bits of QOF – common standards across the country for the management of chronic conditions in the community.”
But other groups – such as health and social care partnerships – could take on the responsibility, “using GPs to advise on management decisions for their registered patients”.
This would “lose the contractual element, which means a proportion of practice income is dependent on factors outside my control, such as the diet of my diabetic patient or, more importantly, my workload being increased on the whim of a minister who has been pressurised by a particular lobby”.
It comes as NHS England has allowed CCGs to replace QOF with a local incentive scheme as part of co-commissioning.
The delegates voted against the motion to include 15-minute appointments into the contract, while a motion to introduce three-year contracts as a permanent fixture was taken as reference.
