Consultation response on abolishing GP boundaries

28 October 2010

A Department of Health consultation has found that 77 percent of the public in England support the principle that people should be able to register with any GP practice with an open list, whereas 70 per cent of healthcare professionals were opposed to free choice.

These results feature in a summary of responses from a consultation launched earlier this year seeking views on proposals to abolish GP practice boundaries and enable people to register with any practice.

This is just one aspect of the Government vision set out in the white paper Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS, which aims to offer patients greater choice and "complete control over their care".

A total of 5,459 responses to the consultation were received with 59 per cent coming from members of the public, 34 percent from healthcare professionals and 5% on behalf of organisations.

The results reflected concerns, especially among healthcare providers, that logistical issues would be difficult to overcome in providing greater choice in patient care, for example the ability of GPs to do home visits over a greater area.

The report concludes that there remain a number of policy and logistical issues to resolve with the profession and with the NHS prior to implementation. These include:

• principles on which revised home visiting areas should be founded
• reforms to payment systems to ensure that money follows the patient
• information flows necessary to support patient choice and the role of HealthWatch
• implications for commissioning and co-ordinating community-based services
• safeguards that need to be established to protect access for local residents (who may not wish to register further away from home).