By HELEN COMPSON

Last updated at 11:05, Friday, 20 June 2008

DOCTORS’ surgeries across Tynedale are under siege once more as new legislation threatens their income.

Coming just months after the swingeing cuts proposed during contract negotiations with Northumberland Care Trust, this time the culprit is the Pharmacy White Paper.

Currently out to consultation, its contents could be disastrous for GPs’ practices if it passes into law.

The white paper suggests that doctors’ dispensaries operating within one mile of a pharmacy would be deemed unnecessary and wound down.

But the NHS income those dispensaries draw in is vital to GPs’ practices, warn doctors.

“Dispensaries contribute between 10 and 20 per cent to a practice’s income – and more in the most rural areas,” said Corbridge GP Roger Dykins.

“If all the dispensaries across Northumberland affected by these changes closed it would take between £1.2 million and £1.5 million out of the primary care system.”

The dispensary at Corbridge pays for one full-time and one part-time doctor.

Haydon Bridge’s dispensary pays the wages of one doctor, said GP Steven Ford.

“This will be disastrous if it goes through – many rural practices are only really kept going by their dispensaries,” he said.

“We could soon be looking at villages with a pharmacy, but no doctors.”

There was fury among GPs, he said, particularly as the same practices that had been involved in the acrimonious contract negotiations earlier this year were taking the punches again.

It took months for healthcare service commissioners Northumberland Care Trust and those practices on the Personal Medical Services contracts to reach agreement.

Even then, the agreement is based on a precarious arrangement by which budget cuts are offset by new income streams for GPs for providing new services.

Dr Ford said: “We are being squeezed with the PMS contracts and with the dispensaries – basically, small practices will eventually close.”

Dr Dykins was one of several GPs who represented Northumberland at a Department of Health ‘listening event’ held to gather feedback.

There is furore nationwide among GPs, he said, but the public has to wake up to the threat, too.

“Around 75 per cent of dispensing practices are under threat – even those who have dispensaries but no pharmacy nearby could suffer,” he said.

“There have been a lot of new pharmacy applications from people ready to move in and clean up.”

Tynedale’s residents should act now by filling in the questionnaires that some practices had printed, and by contacting Hexham’s MP Peter Atkinson.

“We are still at the consultation stage, so it is going to be 18 months before we begin to see the effects of this,” he said.

“That will be around the time negotiations begin again over the PMS contracts, complete with the cuts they have embedded within them.

“It could be a double-whammy for the practices concerned.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said it had to be recognised that primary care extended further than the family doctor.

“There is an important role to play for community nurses and health visitors, for mental health teams, for pharmacies – and for voluntary organisations,” she said.

“The Pharmacy White Paper sets out measures to enhance the role of pharmacy in providing a wide range of local health services.”

Health minister Ben Bradshaw said: “These proposals are not about pharmacists taking over the work of GPs – it's about complementing them, taking pressure off GPs and enabling them to spend more time with those patients who really need it.”

First published at 13:29, Thursday, 19 June 2008
Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk