The plan to scale down the number of hospital admissions which are unnecessary is at risk, as the general practitioners refuse to operate their own budgets . The proposals of the Government will be unveiled towards end January 2006 which will enable better access to sexual health clinics. This plan depends to a very great extent upon doctors to commission the new services. Most of the doctors in the country are unwilling to accept this responsibility, and without the active cooperation of the general practitioners, the program may well become a non-starter.
Deficits are already plaguing the NHS, and doctors are reluctant to take on budgets wherein cost cutting is taking place. Only about 25% of the doctors have taken on the responsibility in 2005 under the practice-based commissioning scheme. Specialist services are sought to be provided by the doctors to the community. The primary care trusts are operating where the responsibility has not been taken up by the doctors.Community services are receiving greater focus from the NHS as this will serve to contribute towards bringing down expensive hospital treatment. The community services can also be redesigned by the GPs as a result of this. It has also been opined that better incentives need to be offered by the Government to the doctors.
The NHS IT program is estimated at £6.2 billion. A research carried out by Medix has revealed that only 17% of the doctors favored the program as at present, when in comparison to 47% three years back. The initial enthusiasm displayed by the doctors seems to have waned. One of the reasons for this is reported to be that medical practitioners were not consulted by the NHS. The program is likely to have an adverse impact on the confidentiality of the patient records, as they will become available on the national database.
