Suffolk: GPs in budget cut battle

Health centre budget cuts in Suffolk have been criticised by doctors, according to the BBC.

GPs in Haverhill claim they are facing cuts of as much as £300,000 in funding because of a new agreement with Suffolk Primary Care Trust.

The Trust said many of the services provided by doctors can be done more efficiently by pharmacists, nurse practitioners, NHS Direct and others.

Four years ago the health centres were given growth money to help recruit more staff and treat more people, but now they say the cash is being taken away.

The doctors have united and pledged to fight the budget cuts.

Speaking for all the surgeries, Dr Neville Selby said: "It's tremendously demoralising and as a GP you must do your utmost to help the patients you live and work with.

"To have a government organisation telling you that you can't do certain things is downright immoral."

GP out-of-hours complaints soar

The number of serious complaints made against GPs over out-of-hours care has soared in recent years, reports the BBC.

Figures show that the two leading family doctor insurance companies, which cover nine out of ten GPs in England, dealt with nearly 300 complaints in 2006.

One of the firms has seen cases triple since a new contract started in 2004.

Patients said it showed the service had got worse and urged Gordon Brown to take action, but doctors said people were more likely to complain now.

Critics of the new GP contract have always maintained that the service has got worse with patients struggling to get through to doctors out-of-hours.

And the latest figures come after Gordon Brown promised to address problems with out-of-hours care on the eve of becoming prime minister.

The Medical Defence Union (MDU) and Medical Protection Society (MPS), which also offer legal advice, only get involved with the most serious and complex cases, such as those that involved deaths, compensation claims or issues that involve the regulatory body, the General Medical Council.

The MPS figures show that officials started dealing with 30 new cases in the UK in 2003 - the last full year under the old system - but by 2006 that had risen to 100.

This was during a period when the overall number of cases about doctors remained steady at around 3,500.

Meanwhile, the MDU dealt with 182 complaints in England last year, up from 120 in 2002.

Stephanie Bown, of the MPS, said doctors are under a lot of pressure dealing with lots of patients "one after another".

Michael Summers, chairman of the Patients Association, said: "These figures are worrying, but not surprising.

"It is quite clear the service has got worse. Patients complain that they cannot get through and we have heard of doctors who have to travel hundreds of miles to see people.

"It was good that Gordon Brown said he would be looking at this issue and we would urge him to act straight away. Out-of-hours care needs more funding."

GP surgeries 'bursting at seams'

Three-quarters of GP practices are "bursting at the seams" and will soon be unsuitable for care, a survey says - according to the BBC.

Doctors said they did not have enough space to add any more services, with one surgery reporting it had used the staff room to administer vaccinations.

GPs said the snapshot poll of 251 surgeries by the British Medical Association cast doubt on plans to move care from hospitals to the community.

But ministers said the findings did not present the full picture. At the beginning of the year, the government unveiled plans to invest more in community NHS services in England.

They said GPs in the future would provide a whole range of extra services such as diabetes clinics and minor surgeries.

But doctors from across the UK told the BMA that the NHS's 11,000 practices risked not filling their potential because of a lack of funding.