Swine flu jabs cause pay row January 2010
Posted date: 4 January 2010
Plans to vaccinate children under the age of five against swine flu have been threatened by a row over pay.
The British Medical Association (BMA) has said that vaccinating three million healthy youngsters aged from six months to five years would leave doctors out of pocket.
Doctors were being offered £5.25 per dose by the Government to carry out the vaccinations, as well as a “small concession”.
But the BMA wanted the Government to relax their rules on access to appointments while the jabs were being carried out. The medical body argued that without this, doctors would lose money as they are paid bonuses to give patients appointments within 48 hours.
Laurence Buckman, Chairman of the BMA’s GPs Committee, said: “We sincerely wanted to be able to reach a national agreement. Unfortunately, this has not been possible, because the Government would not support adequate measures to help free up staff time.”
He added: “At the busiest time of the year for general practice, with surgeries already dealing with the additional work of vaccinating the first wave of at-risk groups, we felt this was vital to ensure this next phase could be carried out quickly.”
In spite of the breakdown of talks between the BMA and the Government, local NHS trusts have been told to introduce this new stage of the vaccination programme. Some doctors’ surgeries have agreed to implement the scheme in spite of the row.
Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat Health Spokesman, said: “It beggars belief that the Government has not been able to reach an agreement with GPs on an issue of such importance.”
- Issue:
- January 2010
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