In a recent announcement, the Royal College of Surgeons warned that when it comes to health spending, the standards of patient care may be compromised if GPs focus on “the lowest price” rather than quality. 

The RCS, called on greater clarity from the government on the role of doctors, as the radical health reforms will see the introduction of a clinician-led service.

The Royal College of Surgeon’s president John Black said, “Explicit minimum standards of care need to be set out by ministers to avoid GPs entering into a race to the bottom where price squeezes out quality.”

In an analysis of the Coalition’s Health Bill, he said, “Alongside colleagues in the other Medical Royal Colleges, I am concerned that some of the aspirations for a clinician-led health service envisaged by the Health Secretary are not born out by the legislation as currently drafted.”

“We are concerned that minimum standards of care are not set out in the new arrangements to introduce greater competition. It is quite right that the government seeks the best value in health spending, but this needs greater detail if we are to avoid a ‘race to the bottom’ with price squeezing out quality.”

Under the flagship bill, which was published earlier this month, will see GPs being handed power to commission treatment worth £80 billion. A new independent NHS Commissioning Board will allocate budgets and oversee the reformed service. 

Mr Black also called on the government to give more detail on how the new board would be constituted, and criticised the fact that it includes no formal requirements for clinician representation at the highest level.

“This new system will only fulfil the expectations invested in it if practising clinicians of all specialities are able to co-ordinate, and engagement between commissioning consortia and local hospitals needs to be included as a responsibility,” he added.

A Department of Health spokesman said, “There will be no compromise on quality. Our plans to modernise the NHS are firmly focused in improving quality so that all will have better healthcare.”

“The NHS Commissioning Board will allocate resources and it will also have an explicit statutory duty to promote quality improvement. National consistency in quality standards will come through commissioning guidelines, based on clinical evidence from Nice.”

As the government continues to move forward with its plan to radically reform the NHS, criticisms and concerns are not likely to abate in the coming weeks and months. At MPP Locum, we understand the concerns patients and health care professionals have.

MPP Locum ensures all our doctors, locum doctors; specialist registrar personnel are vigorously checked before being placed in key roles. We provide quality staff to our clients and are regulated by the Care Quality Commission and the NHS Buying Solutions. MPP Locums is an approved supplier of locum jobs to the NHS under the National Locum contract starting 1st July 2008 for the next three years.

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