Family doctors will be paid bonuses for persuading teenage girls to have contraceptive implants and injections.

Doctors paid to give contraceptive injection to teenage girls
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"From 2010, GPs will receive the payments for encouraging their young female patients to use long-lasting methods rather than taking the pill every day.

They will be advised to tell teenagers already on oral contraceptives that the coil or implant are better at preventing pregnancies.

Ministers believe the move is necessary to help prevent unwanted teen pregnancies, as many young girls forget to take the pill.

However, the plan, announced on Thursday by Health Secretary Alan Johnson and Schools Secretary Ed Balls, has been criticised by campaigners.

They warned that the measures would lead to thousands of underage girls being given contraception without the knowledge of their parents.

Jackie Fletcher, of anti-vaccine group Jabs, said: "Giving a doctor a monetary gain to promote a product is abhorrent."

From next April, GPs will be paid for giving teenagers advice on sexual health, particularly on long-acting contraception."

Doctors may have to alter their working hours radically by opening their surgeries in the evenings and at weekends as part of a shake-up of the NHS.

Doctors to stay open longer in NHS shake-up - Telegraph

Extract:

"Doctors will have to alter their working hours radically by opening their surgeries in the evenings and at weekends as part of a shake-up of the NHS being considered by Gordon Brown.

The Chancellor - who will learn today whether he is to face a Left-wing challenge for the Labour leadership - could change GPs' contracts to encourage them to tailor opening hours more to busy working people.

Mr Brown, the favourite to succeed Tony Blair, moved his campaign up a gear yesterday saying more needed to be done "to show people that the health service is going to move into the modern era and is there for people when they need it". GPs earn on average about £106,000 a year but to the fury of many patients most do not open their doors outside the hours of 8am and 6.30pm.

Mr Brown also wants more "walk-in" health centres near places of work, pharmacies providing routine services such as blood pressure tests and a system of electronic repeat prescriptions.

Under contracts introduced three years ago, GPs received a 22 per cent pay rise but were able to opt out of delivering out-of-hours care."

Family doctors received a pay rise of almost 23 per cent in one year, according to NHS figures

NHS contracts prove a nice earner for doctors - Telegraph

Extract:

"Family doctors received a pay rise of almost 23 per cent in one year, according to NHS figures published yesterday.

According to NHS figures published yesterday, GPs earned £100,170 on average in 2004-05, in the first year of their new contract that linked payments to services they provide such as cholesterol checks and flu jabs. However, they no longer have to provide care at night or at weekends.

NHS negotiators underestimated the payments that GPs would be able to claim under the new Quality and Outcomes Framework contract. Struggling primary care trusts had to pay them £300 million more than expected in the first year."


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Doctors' pay deal 'was so easy it was a laugh,' says Dr Simon Fradd, formerly a member of the GPs committee of the British Medical Association.

Doctors' pay deal 'was so easy it was a laugh' says Dr Simon Fradd.

Extract:

"His comments come as controversy continued over GPs' pay. Figures show that an average GP is now earning £102,000 per annum, a 30 per cent increase in a year.

Dr Simon Fradd said that when it was proposed that for not working "out of hours" at night or at weekends they would only forfeit six per cent of their pay, the GP negotiators were astonished. They had expected it to cost them much more.

Dr Fradd, who is not now a member of the GPs committee of the British Medical Association, told the BBC Radio 4 programme The Investigation, to be broadcast today, that doctors had never believed the Government would allow them to opt out of out-of-hours care.
So they were more surprised that the team, acting on behalf of the Government, was only asking for a small cut, he said.

"We got rid of it for effectively six per cent of the value of the contract. It was just stunning. Nobody in my position had ever believed we could pull it off but to get it for six per cent was a bit of a laugh," he said. "