East London GP surgeries face closure
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THURSDAY 5TH JUNE 2014 JOIN THE TOWER HAMLETS DEMONSTRATION TO SAVE OUR GP SURGERIES
GOVERNMENT CUTS IN FUNDING FOR GPS IN DEPRIVED AREAS: 12 HACKNEY GP PRACTICES FACE CLOSURE The “SAVE OUR SURGERIES” relay will begin at St Katherine’s Dock Practice, Nightingale House, 50 Thomas More St, London E1W 1UA at 2.30pm, ending with a rally at Kingsley Hall, Bromley by Bow at 6pm. Patients and health workers will march from Tower Hamlets GP practice to GP practice carrying an image of Aneurin Bevan, founder of the NHS. GP surgeries will have static protests outside to receive the relay and pass Nye Bevan on! |
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Click here to sign the 38degrees petition to restore MPIG funding to GPs in Hackney and other deprived areas
Please share this petition with others to save our local GP surgeries Our local campaign
Virginia Patania, Practice Manager of the Tower Hamlets Jubilee Practice was one of the speakers at our Hackney KONP meeting on 7th May 2014. She told us that hers was among the 98 GP surgeries threatened by government funding cuts across the country. There are 12 practices in Hackney facing closure. Among those most at risk from cuts to the Minimum Practice Income Guarantee are the Lower Clapton Group Practice, Well Street Surgery and the Lawson Practice. The Lower Clapton Group training surgery will lose £250,000 – the equivalent of about four doctors’ salaries - starting with £35,000 this year, and rising in £35,000 increments until 2020. The phasing out of MPIG is particularly catastrophic because it is taking place against the backdrop of a freefall in funding for general practice, with many practices relying on the MPIG funding stream to simply survive. |
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Andy Burnham hits out at NHS GP surgeries facing axe in deprived areas
Hackney Gazette 14 May 2014 Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham visited London’s deprived East End in a campaign to stop GP surgeries closing. He turned up with Shadow Health Minister Liz Kendall at Stepney’s Jubilee Surgery in Commercial Road yesterday, joining Labour’s candidate for Tower Hamlets Mayor, John Biggs, and Poplar & Limehouse MP Jim Fitzpatrick, on his whistle-stop tour. NHS campaigners are fighting the closure of 98 surgeries in deprived areas across the country. There are five under threat in the East End alone, due to government cuts, they point out. “It’s unbelievable that GPs find themselves in this position,” said the Shadow Health Secretary. “It will be calamitous if this is not resolved quickly. “These are vital services—to throw their future in doubt is unforgivable.” He is to raise the concerns with the Secretary of State “as a matter of urgency”. Mr Burham added: “It’s wrong for the staff, wrong for the doctors and wrong for the patients who need support. “They cannot have an axe hovering over them when they’re trying to provide health care to the people who need it.” Labour also launched an AdVan promoting their NHS pledge which toured London the rest of the day. His visit to Stepney was a boost for the campaign to save the five East End surgeries facing closure. Government changes to GP funding means NHS money earmarked to “soften the impact of poverty” has been diverted to plug funding gaps elsewhere, Labour claims. It means 98 surgeries in deprived areas have had their funds cut and may have to close. Five surgeries—including Jubilee Street practice—are in Tower Hamlets, a deprived area with the largest population increase of any local authority in England and Wales between 2001 and 2011, according to the National Census. |
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MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE GP MINIMUM PRACTICE INCOME GUARANTEE (MPIG) (extract from Tower Hamlets leaflet - with thanks).
Due to Government changes in the way that General Practice is funded some inner city and rural practices in England will suffer big budget cuts from April 2014. Minimum Practice Income Guarantee (MPIG) was brought in 2004 to ensure that practices in deprived areas with a high turnover of patients were adequately funded to deliver high quality General Practice services. All of the evidence shows that one of the biggest factors affecting health outcomes is deprivation. However, the Government are phasing MPIG out over the next seven years. Less weight will be given to deprivation and more to age. This means that Tower Hamlets, which is one of the most deprived areas of the country, loses out to more affluent areas with a greater proportion of elderly patients, even though the high levels of deprivation in Tower Hamlets means that more people here have serious long term illnesses at a much younger age. Cuts in funding to General Practice will mean cuts in the services that your surgery is able to offer you and your family. For example, Jubilee Street Practice is a large, award winning practice on Commercial Road. They have some of the best outcomes in the country for many chronic diseases and patient satisfaction levels of over 90%. Due to the phasing out of MPIG they have calculated that they will lose nearly £1 million over the next seven years. This means that services will get cut and the surgery is at risk of closure. THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN! A THREAT TO ONE IS A THREAT TO ALL! There are 98 GP practices in England that are as badly affected by MPIG as Jubilee Street, many of these are in London and five are in Tower Hamlets. Other practices in the borough are also feeling the strain. If five practices are forced to cutback or close there will inevitably be more pressure on the rest, risking collapse of the whole system and opening up the possibility that our GP services will be taken over by private providers such as Virgin or Care UK. This comes amidst a climate of huge cuts to the whole of NHS funding and creeping privatisation of NHS services. Privatisation leads to poorly paid staff and services cut to the bone in order to make a profit for shareholders. The NHS is the best loved institution in Britain, even more so than the monarchy. Despite what we are told, the NHS is one of the most cost effective health care services in the developed world and there is plenty of money in society to pay for it. It is the envy of other nations. Since 1948 it has been there for all of us when we have needed it, regardless of ability to pay, from the cradle to the grave. |
See also GP on-line articles: http://www.gponline.com/london-gps-launch-mpig-campaign-save-practices-facing-financial-ruin/article/1291270 and
London MP demands government funding for MPIG-hit practices
MPIG set to be phased out within seven years in sweeping overhaul of GP funding. Pulse article October 2012
London MP demands government funding for MPIG-hit practices
MPIG set to be phased out within seven years in sweeping overhaul of GP funding. Pulse article October 2012
