GPs and the “no incentive” story
So the same GPs who are to be entrusted with the £80bn NHS budget from April 2013 may be stripped of their role in telling people whether they are too sick to work or not:
A new body could decide whether people are fit to work, according to drafts of the Government’s Independent Review into Sickness Absence.
Employers would be able to ask the assessment panel, rather than GPs, to make independent decisions.
It is likely to say that family doctors can be too quick to sign people off on sick leave because there is no incentive for them to help people stay in work.
“No incentive, eh?” Perhaps the now well-developed and successful Quality & Outcomes Framework doesn’t count, even though it is specifically designed to “reward practices for the provision of ‘quality care’” (p.1), and does include financial rewards for care which promotes people getting into work (e.g. see p.97), as well as explicitly recognising the general link between employment and good health (e.g. p.125).
Anyway, the new review has been co-chairedby Dame Carol Black, an NHS director for health and work. I’m sure this briefing from the Commercial Occupational Health Providers Association (COHPA) is entirely coincidental:
COHPA has been active politically in trying to represent the interests of commercial OH providers to Dame Carol Black, Government and key bodies in the industry. We have met with Dame Carol and Ministers from DWP /senior HSE (etc) to put our views across about the future of OH. We hold seats on Dame Carol’s select committee for OH and the Council for Work and Health.
And we’re sure it’s entirely coincidental that COHPA was founded by ATOS Healthcare, which owns ATOS origin, which already has a £500m contract to conduct incapacity assessments, but which doesn’t necessarily do them very well.
In any event, we’re sure, should it comes to pass, that a key element of primary care provision will be safe in ATOS’s hands.
this is a complete plan to privatise.
If you are sick you want to see a doctor local to you, will there be that under these proposals, it is frankly ‘sick’ to propose this and surely even the Lib Dums can not support this ?
Clegg went on record before he was leader that he was for the break up of the NHS, so yes they agree.
a) I don’t know whether the new assessments will be performed by moonlighting doctors or call-centre employees. But if I was swinging the lead, I’d far rather face the call-centre employee and their tick box questions than someone who could perform a medical examination.
b) Doctors do NOT sign workers off work without good reason. Not for any extended period.
c) Companies already have significant powers to dismiss workers who are consistently ill. Nor will they hire them. For example, any worker who has more than 10 days sick in a year will no longer qualify for any annual employee bonus and can be referred to the company doctor for medical examination. Failure to comply results in dismissal.
Unlike John Major, who encouraged a mass migration of the unemployed onto invalidity benefit, I am in favour of keeping people in work because unemployment causes mental illness. And the report is quite right in saying that, after four weeks, the unemployed can ‘drift’, lose hope, etc. Which is why it’s so important that the unemployed get the encouragement and support they need to get back to work. Instead they’re branded as benefit cheats by Frank Field, James Purnell and the clown that rebranded the Dole Office as Job Centre Plus. If you want a job, the last place you’ll find one is the Job Centre.
Finally, here are three facts of which no-one commenting on unemployment in the media is aware. To receive benefits, you need :-
a) To have paid National Insurance over the previous two years, irrespective of how many years you’ve worked. Easy to fail this if you ‘drift’ with depression say. (It’s surprisingly easy to fall through the cracks in the system.)
b) Have no savings whatsoever.
c) Perform three ‘steps’ a week. Interviews, applications, job searches. This is checked every two weeks at interview and sanctions ARE applied on failure.