GP Fund Holders (Hansard, 18 May 1992)

§ Mr. Hinchliffe
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to her answer of 12 May,Official Report, column 80, what detailed assessment has been made of the implications for any given locality of the collective purchasing power of fund-holding general practitioners being greater titan that of the purchasing authority.

§ Dr. Mawhinney
GP fund holders' budgets cover a limited range of hospital services which currently account for around 14 per cent. of total spending per head on the hospital and community health services (HCHS). District health authorities would therefore be responsible for purchasing over 80 per cent. of the HCHS services needed for patients, even in areas where all the GPs were fund holders.

§ Mr. Hinchliffe
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what advice she has issued to either regional health authorities, district health authorities, family health service authorities, or individual general practitioners regarding the establishment and operation of purchasing consortia among fund-holding general practitioners.

§ Dr. Mawhinney
No such guidance has been issued. Judgments on how best to discharge their responsibility for purchasing services for their patients are for GP fund holders themselves to take locally.

§ Mr. David Porter
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance is given to family health service authorities on allocating their budgets to general practitioners; what monitoring his Department undertakes; what weight one year's spending puts on the next year's allocation; and if he will make a statement.

§ Dr. Mawhinney
Guidance on budget setting for GP fund holders is contained in EL(91)36 "General Practice Funding: Financial Matters", a copy of which is in the62W Library. The responsibility for budget setting lies with regional health authorities, although they may delegate some of this responsibility to family health services authorities. The guidance makes it clear that the main determinant of the budget set is the historical level of activity and spending adjusted, as necessary, to take account of significant changes in patient populations and costs.