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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.
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