Hello All!!
Just heard this morning that GP’s will have more ‘control’ over their Budgets from now on. Thus (from what I can gather) excluding the PCT’s.
Do you think that this will mean that medicines etc will now be available as it will be for the GP’s to decide?
So will this mean, there might be less ‘hoops’ that one has to jump thru to try and get something that will help us, even though it has not been specifically prescribed for MS?
Albeit, ppl know that it works for certain symptoms…
Thnx in advance
God Bless
Anna x
I work as a manager for a gp surgery. I don’t think that much will change any time soon. Gp’s will still have a prescribing budget to stick to. The Clinical Commissioning Groups will still have to stick to the list of drugs they are allowed to prescribe. Drugs are normally classed as green, amber, red or black. Anything that falls into the red/black group are not allowed to be prescribed by gp’s except in exceptional circumstances.
So, for now, I can’t see much changing at all. If anything, gp’s will be even more careful with their prescribing as they will have other gp’s on the Clinical Commissioning Group to answer to.
I’m still not sure exactly how (if at all) we’ll be affected, but I tend to agree with Lindylou that GPs won’t suddenly have carte blanche to prescribe things we’ve previously been refused. I’m sure many things will still need to be sanctioned by a neuro. My GP already won’t prescribe things for symptom relief that the law allows her to, without referring back to the hospital every time. I phoned last the week before last about cramp and spasticity that are no longer being adequately controlled by my current med of baclofen. She didn’t know what to do, and said she’d check and call me back last week - which she never did, and now it’s an extended bank hol. weekend. So I’ve gone 11 days, and counting, with no resolution to the problem. She agreed I could take extra diazepam, as an interim measure, but now THAT’s starting not to work (up half the night last night, despite maximum permitted Baclofen AND max permitted Diazepam). If they won’t take even routine firstline symptom relief in hand, without having to cross-check with the hospital every time, I’m not optimistic we’ll suddenly get access to a whole new range of drugs. Tina
Treatment of MS has been taken out of the ‘basket’ of things that GPs control and will still be funded and controlled centrally. I heard this from a friend who has a lot to do with NICE and I don’t know whether it means symptom control is decided about by GPs and dmds looked after centrally or what. Does anyone else know?
In the end the changes are about saving money. The reorganisation is costing a lot which will come out of the same reduced amount of money.
Long term it may do some good if cheaper treatment options are investigated and more resources are devoted to disease prevention.
However in the short term it is likely to make things worse particularly because a lot of medical staff are going to take some time to learn what the new system allows them to do.
It would be hard to read a more biased article than this one (and I always thought that the Indie really was just that).
Interesting to read right to the bottom, and see how many people disagree with what it says.
Yes, the NHS management needs to be sorted out.
No, I don’t think that the new Commissioning panels will be any better than the old PCTs.
The hospitals are still there - owned by the NHS
Their staff are still there - paid by the NHS.
If the Indie had chosen to have a go at the sheer stupidity of the new 111 non-emergency service, I would be cheering them on.
If they had chosen to have a go at the sheer commercial incompetence of some of the contracts given to the (privately owned and operated) NHS Treatment Centres, I would be cheering them on.
If the Indie had chosen to have a go at the ratio of frontline NHS Staff to NHS Management, I would be cheering them on.
Asit is, just another newspaper trying to start a moral panic - and obviously not succeeding.
Geoff