Letter: GP fundholding based on self-interest

GP fundholding based on self-interest

Sir: Having trained for nine years to enter general practice, spent significant capital outlay on the provision of adequate and sterile facilities the Government see fit to reward me with around pounds 10 per minor surgical procedure. After expenses this amounts to zero profit.

I, like many of my colleagues, perform minor surgery for no net remuneration because I can, because it provides a better service to my patients and because I enjoy it. Alan Maynard ("Dorrell must decide what he wants from doctors", 15 May) points out that the 1990 GP contract offered fees for minor surgery to cut down hospital "lumps and bumps" work and yet still alludes to a sometimes deficient service.

Will the deficiency in management skills revealed in the Audit Commission report be commensurate with that which can be expected from a virtually untrained yet greater remunerated person who just happens to be a (fundholding) GP trying to do the best for his patients?

Dr Chris Hale

Woolsthorpe By Belvoir,

Lincolnshire