Primary care czar
Dr David Colin-Thome’s reported remark that practice-based commissioning is a
corpse not for resuscitation is the quote that will not die.

It was the talk
of day one of the National Association of Primary Care’s (NAPC) annual conference in
Birmingham on Tuesday.

The big news of
course is that the NAPC has a plan for foundation practices to hold real
budgets in community health collaboratives. So far so Conservative policy.

But hang on a
minute, isn’t that Labour’s health minister Mike O’Brien offering to purse his lips
and use the same resus technique?

Mr O’Brien may
have given a far more political speech than he did to the RCGP conference
earlier this month but he tried to pull off the trick of exploiting the
differences between Labour and Conservative health policies in one breath, and
then backing the Tory idea of practices holding real budgets in the other. But
it’s alright because cuddly Mike won’t force you to do it if you don’t want to,
unlike that nasty Andy Lansley.

My favourite
quote of the day was from the GP explaining that the sandwiches served in
practice-based commissioning meetings were ‘the most expensive in the country’
because so little had been achieved as a result of the meetings over the years at
which they had been served.

What I’ve learned
from my first day here is that the recession/election combo means that there is
a hunger for action. Revitalising practice-based commissioning to allow
practices to hold real budgets is the only dish on the menu.