| Thursday 7 Feb 2002 -
issued by BMA London Office GP leaders support MMR and call for freeze on target payments Support for the triple MMR vaccine as the best preventative treatment for children at risk of measles, mumps and rubella came today from the British Medical Association's GP Committee - along with a strong condemnation of any general practitioner who uses a parent's refusal of the immunisation as a reason for removing a patient from their list. The BMA's General Practitioners Committee (GPC) has written to the Department of Health calling for a "moratorium" on the target payments GPs receive for immunising children. If agreed, family doctors would continue to encourage the take up of MMR and other vaccines but would not be financially penalised if parents - possibly influenced by adverse publicity - decided against immunisation. Dr John Chisholm, chairman of the BMA's General Practitioners Committee said: "We are concerned that the storm of adverse publicity concerning the safety of the MMR vaccine is resulting in a significant number of parents deciding not to have their children immunised. This is despite the strenuous efforts of GPs and their teams who are trying to give full information to parents and encourage them to follow best practice. On the issue of single versus triple vaccines for MMR, Dr Chisholm said: "If we truly believe - as we do - that the triple vaccine is the better treatment, we should be offering parents and their children the better, not the worse treatment. This is what family doctors are doing." Target payments to GPs for achieving high rates of childhood immunisations were imposed on an unwilling profession on 1 April 1990. Achieving the targets is now also linked to a sustained quality payment for GPs and the GPC has asked for this to be de-coupled. A similar moratorium on target payments was agreed in 1999 when there were problems with vaccine supply. Media reports have stated that some GPs are removing patients from their lists when their parents refuse immunisation. Dr Chisholm commented: "We understand the pressures GPs are under to meet immunisation targets, a system that we have always believed could potentially damage the relationship of trust between doctor and patient. We are pressing very hard to change this target system to one that rewards the hard work of GPs and their teams and demonstrates respect for informed patient choice. "It is, however, totally unacceptable for any GP to remove or attempt to remove a patient from his or her list on the grounds of refusal of immunisation. We strongly condemn such actions and believe that this is damaging not only to the individual patient doctor relationship and to patient care, but damaging to the profession in general." Ends |