Hancock rejects GPs' vote to remove home visits from contracts

[Northerner]

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has ruled out scrapping home visits for GPs after doctors backed the idea in a vote, arguing that they were too over-stretched to deliver the service.

Delegates representing GPs across England at a British Medical Association conference voted to try to remove the duty from their standard contract, after complaints that they were wasting time driving around the country.

The move clears the way for BMA representatives to lobby NHS England over the measure, but Hancock said the idea was a “complete non-starter”, and he was firmly opposed to the plan.

“The GPs had a vote on what their opening negotiating position should be for the next GP contract. The idea that people shouldn’t be able, when they need it, to have a home visit from a GP is a complete non-starter and it won’t succeed in their negotiations,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/23/home-visits-stay-gp-contracts-health-secretary-hancock

 

[trophywench]

I'm glad he said No from the patient POV but of course dismayed that the state of affairs has come to such a point where the GPs have needed to ask for it - parlous.

 

[Pumper_Sue]

I find the news article odd really as the shower who took over my GP practise advertise it as a lucrative partnership with no home visits as paramedics and nurses have taken on this role. Oh and the pay is £130,000/yr if you want to join the practise as a partner.
The practice has taken a complete and utter nose dive since it was taken over.

 

[Drummer]

I have only ever needed home visits from a GP when I was ill back in my 20s - next thing to pneumonia and the dr said that to send me to hospital would probably finish me off as there were so many people with pneumonia that winter. He called in every morning and evening as it was between his home and the surgery, and brought the medicines I needed - the other drs had had me going to the surgery even though I was very ill, up to the point I collapsed on the floor of the waiting room with a temperature over 100 degrees.
Without home visits I'd probably not be here.

 

[nonethewiser]

Right decision, gp out when children were little and not well enough to attend clinic.

 

[mikeyB]

Yup, I had one today for the first time since I was a wean. I never minded doing home visits, you can learn an awful lot about how people live, it will inform your opinion about any future health problems.