12 October 2015

RCGP Response to Health Foundation’s Review into Quality Indicators for General Practices Across England

Scorecard approach to improving quality outcomes would be counter productive for GPs

Dr Maureen Baker, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: "We are pleased to see that common sense has prevailed and that the Health Foundation is advising against the introduction of a ‘GP scorecard’ as a way of measuring the quality of care in general practice.

"A scorecard approach to improving quality outcomes would be counter productive and demoralising for hardworking GPs, especially at a time when we are trying to make general practice an attractive profession to existing and future doctors.

"GPs are striving constantly to improve the quality of care they provide to their patients but any approach to the development and implementation of metrics needs to reflect the role of family doctors, support them and their teams in their daily duties, and be in the best interests of patients.

"The purpose of such data should help clinicians to improve the care they give to their patients, it must never be used to judge or performance manage them.

"We hope that the Government will take heed of the Health Foundation’s report and recommendations published today.

"The quality of our patients’ health is a priority for the RCGP and we are keen to be involved in any future work by the Government, the Health Foundation or others that aims to genuinely improve our patients’ health outcomes and the quality of the service we provide."

Further Information

RCGP Press office: 020 3188 7574/7575/7581
Out of hours: 0203 188 7659
press@rcgp.org.uk

Notes

The Royal College of General Practitioners is a network of more than 50,000 family doctors working to improve care for patients. We work to encourage and maintain the highest standards of general medical practice and act as the voice of GPs on education, training, research and clinical standards.