By Tony Collins
Clinical Commissing Groups [CCGs] should not have to use their budgets to manage the provision of GP practice IT from April 2013, says the General Practitioners Committee of the British Medical Association, according to Pulse.
The NHS Commissioning Board said in June that expenditure on core GP IT will be included in the £12.6bn primary care commissioning budget devolved to CCGs. But the General Practitioners Committee wants the board to provide additional funding to CCGs.
Primary care trusts now provide funds for GP IT but responsibility will eventually pass to the NHS Commissioning Board.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, GPC lead negotiator on IT, said it was vital that ‘increased resources’ were made available to ensure GPs had access to the full range of support to run their practices.
He told Pulse that as a priority his committee was seeking to ensure that the full cost of GP IT is devolved to CCGs “so that they can ensure that practices receive continued support as well as hardware and all other current provisions for GP IT”.
Dr Nagpaul said it was crucial for CCGs not to have to ‘subsidise IT from their already stretched budget’.
Clinical Commissioning Groups are groups of GPs that, from April 2013, will be responsible for planning and designing local health services in England. They will have budgets to buy health and care services such as planned and emergency hospital care, rehabilitation, community health services and mental health services.
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