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Health and Social Care Bill

My Lords, this highlights clearly the difficulty we face when GPs are independent contractors. Improvements in patient care may result in increased capital investment, which is to the benefit of patients, but the capital investment is also essentially their practice pot, in some areas. If they then move on, we get into complicated areas as to what, at the end of the day, is the GP’s personal funding and what is ploughed back into improvements. It is a major incentive to improve the premises in which you work, and everybody benefits from it. Systems have been in place until now for GPs to access funding to improve their premises. That has been necessary to drive up standards in primary care. When we are looking at this issue, the way that the Government tackle will to set a very important foundation for the whole direction of primary and community care services.