Mr Burnham hopes the plans will drive up standards of local healthcare and allow people a choice of who their family doctor is.
In his first major speech as health secretary Mr Burnham said he did not want people's choice to be 'limited by practice boundaries'. But the move has already sparked controversy over whether it would affect continuity in the healthcare system.
The Tories are also committed to removing GP boundaries, but have called Mr Burnham's announcement 'too little, too late'.
In his speech, Mr Burnham said: 'In this day and age, I can see no reason why patients should not be able to choose the GP practice they want. Many of us lead hectic lives and health services should be there to make things easier.'
Doctors have said they welcome the idea of choice for patients, but have concerns regarding issues such as long-distance home visits for GPs and city centre practices being inundated with new patients.
Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the BMA's GPs committee, said: 'The rest of the health service and social services and county councils all work by areas, and suddenly we're going to take general practice out of that and that is very difficult to see how you can make it work.
'We think it is going to be very complicated.'
No comments:
Post a Comment