VIEWPOINT

VIEWPOINT

Chemical pathology and the new contract for GPs

P J Twomey¹, A S Wierzbicki², T M Reynolds³

¹ Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Little France Crescent, Edinburgh EH16 4SA, UK
² St Thomas’ Hospital, Lambeth Palace Rd, London SE1 7EH, UK
³ Queen’s Hospital, Belvedere Road, Burton on Trent, Staffordshire DE13 0RB, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr P J Twomey
Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Little France Crescent, Edinburgh EH16 4SA, UK; Taptwomey@aol.com

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More targets mean more work for the chemical pathology laboratory

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Keywords: GMS contract; information technology; clinical quality indicators; targets; workload

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The new GMS contract agreed in 2003 is arguably the biggest change in terms of service since the formation of the National Health Service. Work practices, and hence surgery income, will be determined by several income streams, one of which is a quality payment for achieving defined clinical goals.¹ Several of those goals directly or indirectly involve the results of analyses carried out in pathology laboratories,¹ and accordingly the new contract will potentially have a major impact on the workload within pathology and to varying degrees within subspecialties.

Clinical quality indicators comprise 550 of the 1050 points and 91 directly involve results of tests carried out in chemical pathology (table 1).¹ Requesting patterns vary from one practice to another² and region to region, and similarly, the availability of tests varies from one laboratory to another. Accordingly, the effect will vary for each laboratory depending on the relative workload . . . [Full text of this article]

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