Good business case needed for independent sector to provide primary
care services
Government proposals to encourage the independent sector to provide services in primary care will only happen if there is a good business case, the Company
Chemists Association warned this week.
CCA members are concerned that the opportunities for the private sector
to have a greater influence in primary care, created by the new community
pharmacy and GP contracts and practice based commissioning, will be thwarted
by primary care trusts.
The CCA complains that PCTs are historically reluctant to take risks,
are fearful of any radical change and are motivated by meeting short-term
political targets.
Its comments follow a discussion document, “The future shape of
a primary care and general practice”, published this week by the
NHS Alliance — the leading representative organisation for primary
care trusts.
The CCA argues that PCTs need to commission services from a wider range
of providers, not only GPs, and open their eyes to innovation. “This
will allow the NHS to benefit from the novel perspective the private
sector can bring to primary care. There is scepticism about whether PCTs
actually have the courage to commission services from private providers,
and defy the politics of vested interest,” it said.
The CCA also wants to see broader representation on PCTs’ professional
executive committees, including the private sector, to help boost innovation
and entrepreneurship.
The National Pharmaceutical Association is a member of the NHS Alliance’s
allied health professions and primary care practitioners and health networks,
and contributed to the Alliance report.
NPA head of NHS service development Karen Homan said: “We recognise
that there are an awful lot of opportunities for community pharmacists
to develop new services in line with primary care provision. However
there are a number of stumbling blocks and barriers which need to be
overcome. One of the issues is that, historically, PCTs are used to commissioning
with GPs and not others and do not think of the wider health care team.”
The report by the NHS Alliance was drawn up on the back of the raft of
Government reforms for primary care. The Alliance said the changes would
be “radical” but the problem for PCTs was their ability to
challenge the status quo without “creating chaos”. PCTs were
particularly concerned that the reforms meant that primary care was moving
from a “near-monopoly” of service providers to a plurality
of provision which could destabilise the system. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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