Responding to the announcement today of changes to the practice-level GP reimbursement scheme, Andy Pow, adviser to the Association of Independent Specialist Medical Accountants (AISMA), said:
‘Relaxing the scheme rules to allow the use of self-employed locums makes sense and is something AISMA has called for in its discussions with NHS England.
‘Our concern was that the scheme rules were too restrictive and created inconsistency across the country, leading to poor uptake in some areas. Smaller practices had insufficient budgets to create substantive employed salaried GP posts and under the scheme rules partners could not provide more sessions for their own practices.’
Mr Pow went on to explain that partners cannot work as salaried GPs at their own practices because legally they cannot employ themselves. They can, however, work extra sessions as locums at their own practices.
He added: ‘The hope is that the relaxation of the rules means that partner locum sessions can now also be reimbursed. This should significantly boost the uptake of the scheme ahead of the busy winter period.’