Sacked NHS managers could simply move to work for GPs

Written by: Andy Wells. Published: 20th July 2010

NHS managers made redundant by the Government could end up working for GPs under a huge 'revolving door' scandal, it emerged last night.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley last week unveiled plans to axe a range of NHS organisations, potentially costing 20,000 managers their jobs.

He said family doctors should take over responsibility for these groups' huge budgets. But now GPs have been told by their professional body to employ Health Service bureaucrats to carry out this task.

It is even possible that managers could move to work for GPs after taking hefty redundancy packages from the NHS.

Such a move would undermine the Government's plans to slash bureaucracy.

The British Medical Association's chairman, Dr Laurence Buckman, has sent an email to all members saying: 'We cannot rise to this challenge without the help and expertise that can currently be found in the NHS.

'We are also going to need to work with the best managers if this is going to be successful. We will need all the skills possible to make it work.

'We should look inside the NHS and to our professional body for support, rather than going elsewhere for advice.'

The email, seen by the magazine Health Service Journal, suggests that many of the sacked managers will simply end up moving across to work for 500 or so GP commissioning groups, who will take on much of the role of Primary Care Trusts.

Dr Buckman said Mr Lansley's proposals had created 'serious concerns' for GPs and could represent a 'major threat' both to the current form of GP practice and 'even to the NHS as a public service'.

There are concerns that the BMA may demand pay rises for GPs before they agree to take on the new responsibilities.

Roger Goss, chief executive of Patient Concern, said: 'It's outrageous: exactly what we predicted. You'll simply have the bureaucracy moving from one office to the other.

'I can't see where the savings are going to come, especially if you pay redundancy when you know perfectly well these people are going to get a similar job the next week.'