Voluntary seven-day contract unfavourable, survey suggests

Only 12 per cent of GPs would consider signing up to the new voluntary seven-day access contract, according to a survey conducted by Pulse.

The new contract was announced by Prime Minister David Cameron in October 2015, who said that the new voluntary contract would ‘get rid of the box-ticking and the form filling’ and encourage practices to offer routine appointments from 8am-8pm seven days a week.

However, the survey of more than 900 GPs found that only 12 per cent of respondents would consider the contract, with 70 per cent saying they would not.

The contract will be offered to practices or federations with list sizes longer than 30,000 patients. GPs told Pulse that they don’t see how the extra routine hour can be delivered with an already stretched workforce and resources and they also felt that the scheme was more about winning over voters instead of achieving evidence based improvement to care.

Dr David Coleman, a GP in Doncaster, described the contract as ’foolhardy’ given current under-resourcing.

He said: “It is a significant challenge to provide safe and effective routine GP services five days a week. Stretching our limited resources to provide seven day routine services, which are not supported by evidence and have been poorly utilised in pilots, would be foolhardy, and I firmly believe we have to be realistic and stand united on this issue.”