The Royal College of GPs (RCGP) has said all GPs should be given leadership chances to keep the profession together while the NHS goes through reforms.
RCGP chair Dr Clare Gerada (pictured) said it was important GPs remain united, in the week she took over leadership of the organisation
She told Healthcare Republic: “Those among my profession who are marching onwards and think they can, within themselves, reorganise general practice and have a top-down structure … I suggest you think again.”
She said the best way to keep GPs working together as a unit was to ensure everyone – including locums and newly qualified GPs – got chances to fill leadership roles.
“Younger GPs are not being allowed to participate,” she said. “If we do not tap into the energy and intelligence of the generation behind us then general practice will lose out.”
Dr Gerada cautioned that giving GPs the job of managing how colleagues perform as part of a consortium could cause problems.
“I am worried about GPs being corralled and being made incredibly uniform. The skill and beauty of general practice is its variability,” she said.
“If consortia spent as much energy looking outside general practice and the variability that might be happening in hospitals I think we would be able to move things on a little further.”
Copyright © Press Association 2010
Royal College of General Practitioners
Your comments (terms and conditions apply):
“I think by ‘Variability in general practice’, Clare means, spectrum of practices from those who get 7 GPs for 7,000 patients (probably PMS somewhere in Elephant and Castle, London), to a practice (GMS) on the other side of spectrum who dont get even half of that. Compare like with like to arrive at intelligent conclusions” – Mohammad Rafiq, Newham
