BMA slams referral management centres

The British Medical Association (BMA) has attacked referral management centres, claiming they are being used to ‘ration’ care and delay non-emergency operations.

Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA’s general practitioners committee (GPC), said: “There is considerable concern among doctors, both GPs and hospital consultants, about referral management and related arrangements.

“Models vary across the country, but diverting GP to consultant referrals to a referral management centre seems to be increasingly common. The centre then decides what happens to the patient’s care.”

The referral centres are staffed by primary care trust staff, some of which are not medically qualified.

Dr Jonathan Fielden, deputy chairman of the BMA’s consultants committee added that clinicians don’t know how referral management systems aid improvements in clinical care. “To them they are purely a cost saving measure, he said.

“The way they work is not transparent or clear. If clinicians don’t know, patients cannot know either. That certainly flies in the face of the government?s patient choice agenda.”

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