Another nice little earner for Britain's overpaid GPs! - GPs' piecework pay boosts chronic caseload

Extracts from an article entitled "GPs' piecework pay boosts chronic caseload" which appeared in the Telegraph on 14 Jan, 2007:

"New GP contracts could be open to exploitation by doctors, it is feared, after nearly 850,000 extra cases of chronic disease were diagnosed in England last year.

The rise follows the introduction of a contract which pays doctors when they identify diseases and provide treatment. It has seen their annual earnings rise 63% in three years to an estimated average of £118,000.

The greatest increase has been the number of patients with high blood pressure. An additional 371,000 cases were identified between the beginning of the contract in 2004/5 and 2005/6. As a result, the proportion of people officially suffering high blood pressure has risen from one in nine to one in eight, in a year.

At some GP practices, alarmingly high levels of disease have been identified. At one in West Yorkshire, one in 14 patients has been diagnosed with emphysema or chronic bronchitis, when on average only one in 71 patients in England is a sufferer. Bradford and Airedale Primary Care Teaching Trust admitted that the GP had "had difficulty in recording accurate data". At a practice in east London, one in 32 patients has been diagnosed with cancer when on average, only one in 143 patients in England has been diagnosed with the condition. The GP declined to comment.

Michael Summers, a spokesman for the Patients' Association said the findings were a cause for concern. "There appears to be a sudden onset of diseases that were not present one year ago. One could be forgiven for suspecting that in some cases, the sudden diagnoses were driven by the desire for a greater income. Some patients could be receiving treatment – and medication – unnecessarily.""

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