Agenda item
REMOVAL OF MINIMUM PRACTICE INCOME GUARANTEE (MIPG)
Minutes:
The Chair welcomed Dr Fiona Sanders, Hackney LMC Chairman, Dr Jackie Applebee, from Tower Hamlets LMC, and Maggie Falshaw, the Chair for Save Our Surgeries. NHS England had sent their apologies for the meeting.
Dr Jackie Applebee advised Members that funding for GP surgeries had been reduced to an all-time low of 8.7%. The MPIG had previously protected practices from loss of services as a result of cuts and was originally set in place in perpetuity, but now plans had been made to phase it out over the next 7 years. Instead, money would be put into a national pot with distributions weighted by patient age. This had a disproportionately negative effect on East London owing to deprivation levels causing residents to become ill at a younger age.
Lots of practices were threatened by this change, but a higher proportion of these were in East London, and campaigns were underway to halt the removal of the MPIG. Ms Saunders reported that an offer had been received from NHS England with criteria offering help for practices losing over £3 per head. She added that very few practices fell into this category, and those that were able to absorb the first few years of cuts would struggle to manage services 3 or 4 years later as cuts continued.
Councillor Rosemary Sales opened the questioning, querying the progress of the Judicial Review (JR) and the role of the Local Authorities.
Dr Applebee replied that the JR was going ahead but the timescale was still unknown. Dr Sanders reported that Local Authorities could help by ensuring their portion of public health contracts (split between LAs and CCGs) was reinvested with local practices. Dr Applebee also asked the JHOSC to help keep pressure on NHS England and politicians to change the proposal.
The Chair highlighted the need for data to be presented for Local Authorities to become involved fully in the issues.
Ms Falshaw replied that the Clinical Effectiveness Group could provide some data, and that the British Medical Association had a calculator to work out loss per patient for practices on the GMS contract. She advised that data collected for Tower Hamlets could be anonymised and shared with the Committee. Dr Sanders added that staffing data was more anecdotal.
Councillor Winston Vaughan asked whether NHS England had been approached for meetings.
Dr Sanders advised that contact had been made but owing to cuts in NHS England there had been difficult in getting a response; she added that meetings were now being confirmed.
Waltham Forest Councillor Richard Sweden queried whether an alternative funding allocation had been suggested, taking account of deprivation levels (e.g. healthy-life expectancy) as well as age.
Dr Applebee responded that an alternative which looked at ‘years to death’ (rather than from birth) had been drawn up, which she agreed to share with the JHOSC. This demonstrated a life expectancy for richer areas up to 15 years longer than those with high levels of deprivation.
Members discussed the points raised by members of the public, and it was:
RESOLVED – that the JHOSC write to Neil Roberts of NHS England, copying in MPs, summarising this discussion and outlining concerns.
The Chair thanked Dr Sanders, Dr. Applebee and Ms Falshaw for attending and answering questions.
Supporting documents:
- Agenda Item 6 Cover Sheet Funding, item 7. PDF 41 KB
- Agenda Item 6 Appendix 1_NHSE_briefing_on_MPIG, item 7. PDF 222 KB