Written question asked by Iain Wright (Labour) on Tuesday, 13 July 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 15 July 2010. It was answered by Simon Burns (Conservative) on Wednesday, 21 July 2010 on behalf of the Department of Health.

General Practitioners

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health pursuant to the statement of 12 July 2010, Official Report, columns 661-681, on NHS White Paper, what (a) funding and (b) other resources will be provided to GPs to enable them to undertake commissioning.

Answer: The White Paper, ““Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS”” published on 12 July 2010, sets out our intention to devolve power and responsibility for commissioning services to local consortia of general practitioner (GP) practices. To support GP consortia in their commissioning decisions, we will also create an independent NHS Commissioning Board.The NHS Commissioning Board will calculate practice-level budgets and allocate these directly to GP consortia. GP consortia will be responsible for managing the combined commissioning budgets of their member GP practices, and using these resources to improve healthcare and health outcomes.We envisage that consortia will receive a maximum management allowance to reflect the costs associated with commissioning. Consortia will have the freedom to decide what commissioning activities they undertake for themselves and for what activities (such as demographic analysis) they may choose to buy in support from external organisations, including local authorities, private and voluntary sector bodies.We will shortly issue a document setting out our proposals in more detail. This will provide the basis for fuller engagement with primary care professionals, patients and the public.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 9298; 514 c433W
Session: 2010-12
Related items: NHS White Paper
Monday, 12 July 2010
Parliamentary proceedings
House of Commons
Subjects: General practitioners
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk