Response from Scottish Office to NASGP's comments on consultation paper

Dear Dr Fieldhouse

SUPPLEMENTARY MEDICAL LISTS FOR NON-PRINCIPAL GENERAL PRACTITIONERS

I was grateful for your letter of 12 July responding to the above consultation paper. Measures for the establishment of a supplementary list system will now be contained in the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Bill which is to be introduced in the Scottish Parliament later this month.

I should first explain that the consultation paper did not go into all the details of the proposed system. The Bill essentially proposes regulation-making powers comparable to those in the NHS (Scotland) Act 1978 which underpin the establishment of the existing medical lists. Final decisions on the details of establishing and operating supplementary lists must await the approval of regulations by Parliament. Nevertheless we propose that similar criteria for gaining admission to a supplementary list and remaining on that list will be applied by all Island Health Boards and Primary Care Trusts. It will be for each non-principal to decide which Board or Trust to make an application to for admission to a supplementary list. Once admitted to such a list the process of applying to gain admission to the supplementary list of any other Board or Trust will be simplified. While it will be for each Board or Trust to maintain its own supplementary list we propose that a centralised database should be created so that a virtual national list is available to all.

As you say a national database provides potential advantages in addition to access to the NHS Superannuation Scheme including those in relation to the quality of care. Further consideration will be given to the issues concerned.

I should add that a recent Working Group report "Prevention Better Than Cure - Ensuring Safer Patients and Better Doctors", copy attached, shows the commitment to ensuring doctors are assisted before under performance causes serious problems and we propose that those on supplementary lists also will be covered by these measures when necessary.

We are committed to the supplementary list system operating successfully and I take your point about ensuring that lists are up-to-date. As I have described above we propose to make it as simple as possible for a locum to be admitted to relevant lists.

As you point out, in Paragraph 17 "attract" should have read "attach". We were also grateful for the comments from your members contained in Appendix I and we will pay attention to these when regulations are being drafted.

Yours sincerely

JOHN DAVIDSON
Primary Care Unit

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