Initial letter sent to OFT

Date sent 04/06/2001

Range of Fees for Fully Qualified GPs working as GP assistants, retainers and locums

It was good to talk to you on the 'phone today and listen to your advice. I am therefore writing to you as requested to put our concerns down on paper.

As explained, the BMA has for many years provided guidance on a suggested range of fees for such GPs as mentioned above. As a result, non-principals and their employing practices have been at liberty to adopt or reject such guidance, or perhaps more commonly adapted the BMA's suggested rates to their only local circumstances. On the whole, as an organisation that has 2,500 such GPs as members we have had little or no problems with these BMA suggested rates since their revision some 3 years ago. In particular, neither employing practice nor GP have raised any problems with these suggestions.

However, since the OFT have been investigating the BMA under the competition Act, we have been inundated with email, fax and telephone enquiries from GPs and practices alike as where to begin when negotiating their fees. The situation seems to have descended into a state of near anarchy, where at one end employing practices are refusing to negotiate rates that are any different to how they were 2 years ago from when the BMA were last allowed to publish rates, on the basis that "the BMA haven't revised their guidance for 2 years, so nor are we" to GP locums and agencies who, in the face of a nationwide shortage of GPs, are taking advantage of this sellers market and are charging what they please.

And if no basis for negotiation can be found, it will be the public who has to forgo a consultation with a GP.

As an organisation that competes with the BMA in representing GP non-principals, we nevertheless see an urgent need for the BMA's guidance to be reinstated or, if not, an alternative means of providing a basis for negotiation needs to be found as a matter of urgency.

Currently, we continue to replicate the BMA's old suggested rates on our website as they were before the Oft began investigating the BMA. May we continue to display the BMA's old fees on our website?

Another proposal we are considering is asking individual non-principals from around the country what they would charge for certain sessions, and publish these on our website. Would the OFT allow us to publish the results of such a survey on our website and in our newsletter?

Could we publish our own suggested rates, bearing in mind though that we all but endorse the BMA's suggested rates?

We would be extremely grateful for your help in this matter.

With best wishes,

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