News / Improved GP services will save millions

GPs could save the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds by improving their quality of the care and performance, the King’s Fund said.

Following an inquiry into the quality of GP care, the organisation said that while most care was good there were ‘widespread variations’ in performance and gaps in the quality of care delivered by GPs.

It said family doctors could save at least £200m by prescribing more drugs, such as statins, generically. Although the UK had one of the highest rates of generic prescribing in the world (83% in 2008), the saving could be generated if all GP practices prescribed as efficiently as the top 25% of practices.

The inquiry uncovered wide variations in the hospital admission rates of patients with long-term conditions that could be treated outside hospital.

In Improving the quality of care in general practice, the fund said several hundred million pounds could be saved each year through more effective management of medical conditions in the community. ?

There were disparities in the rate of referrals – for example, some practices were eight times more likely to refer patients with suspected cancers to specialists. And the quality of diagnosis varied – a third of patients with stomach or oesophageal cancers who needed to see a specialist urgently were given a non-urgent referral.

King’s Fund chief executive Chris Ham said: ‘While many practices have been at the vanguard of innovation and quality improvement, too many GPs remain unaware of significant variations in performance and do not give priority to improving quality. I hope this report will act as a spur to GPs and others working in general practice to accelerate the pace of change.’

In a separate report, the King’s Fund called on the Department of Health to amend the tariff so it reflected differences in fixed capital costs. Reconfiguring hospital services: lessons from south east London said the amendment should increase the funding to trusts that had large debts relating to private finance initiative contracts.

It added the Department should also support high-performing foundation trusts to acquire hospitals with large deficits.