Doctors debate MMR payments
(Filed: 02/07/2002)
 

Doctors are debating whether to ask the Government to change the system under which they are paid for meeting targets on the MMR vaccine.

GPs believe parents are reluctant to trust their advice about the safety of the measles, mumps and rubella jab because they receive a financial incentive to promote its use. The issue will be debated at the British Medical Association's annual conference in Harrogate.

GPs get paid a full fee for meeting 90 per cent of their immunisation targets and a smaller amount if they reach 70 per cent. Dr Hamish Meldrum, joint deputy chairman of the GPs committee of the BMA, said the system was "counter-productive", adding that doctors felt very strongly about the issue.

He said: "Doctors have always felt that the payment was not so much a reward for hitting a target, but it was actually money to help them resource the immunisation programme."

Dr Meldrum said hitting the targets could net doctors up to £2,000 a year each. He said that the vast majority of doctors were fully behind the MMR campaign but added that "parents increasingly are saying 'Well, you would say that because there is money in it for you'."

The Government should allow for "informed dissent" where parents who have heard all the arguments for and against the vaccine still did not want their children to have the jab, Dr Meldrum added. In those cases, doctors should not be penalised.

	28 June 2002: MMR 'may be linked to certain type of autism'
	16 June 2002: Revealed: more evidence to challenge the safety of MMR