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The last thing I want if I am ill and in need of care - very likely since I am only just recovering from 19 years severe mental illness which may well return - is to have to work out my own budget. I rely on my GP - who has always, long before these awful commercialisation reforms, been able to refer me to any specialist in any hospital he feels fit to refer me - to direct me to the best consultant, as my GP in 1989 most certainly did.
I seem to remember the government having tried this experiment of GP funding before. By all means allow GP's to go on referring their patients to the hospital and specialist they feel best, but I don't see any sense in burdening the many GP's who believe they are doing all that they went into general practice to be doing, to continue doing that without un-looked for financial responsibilities.
As a patient I no more want the burden of my own budget than most parents want the burden of having to run their children's schools.