Lessons from Privatisation - Out of Hours

 
 The lessons are, at last, coming out from privatisation of the OOH service.
In the UK, up until April 2004, GPs were responsible the 24-hour care for their patients. This meant a 9-to-5 job in the surgery, looking after all comers; followed by any hours that were not spent working, available on call for anything too urgent to wait until the morning.
GPs are their own worst enemies; the spate of bad press around high incomes and low productivity pumped out by New Labour spin doctors was ignored by the doctors' leaders. The press loved the argy-bargy, and the BMA did nothing to counter it.
The New Labour jumped at the chance to privatise. For the first time in decades, "family doctors" could relax at weekends. As one doctor put it:  the Department of Health took their foot off his neck so that he could his lift his face out of the mud. In April 2004, doctors will relinquished their responsibility for OOH care and paid a tiny penalty.
Are we surprised that accidents happened? When you are building a service to a price, quality suffers -- look what has happened to Toyota!
the next big thing
Gordon Brown's Labour wants to replace the traditional "family doctor" with salaried doctors  operating out of PCT-owned primary care centres. How long will it take before underpaid doctors, working too many hours and unfamiliar with UK primary care, kill many more people?
 http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=4125019&cid=Opinions_1_090210