GPs should give up their independent contractor status to become NHS employees, a leading GP has claimed.
Professor Azeem Majeed, head of the primary care and public health department at Imperial College London said GPs are currently facing “unrestricted demands” while operating on a fixed budget.
However, he believes that becoming NHS employees would allow GPs to link their workload more closely to funding.
He said: “Under the current capitation-based funding method, GPs face unrestricted demands for their services and on their time while having to operate on a fixed budget.”
Professor Majeed added that when GPs are unable to cope with their workload pressure will increase on other parts of the NHS, as well as impacting access to primary care services and how well GPs can manage patients with complex health needs.
In an editorial published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, he argued that general practitioners should be under similar employment terms to doctors working in acute, community and mental health trusts.
