GPs and primary care staff are not confident in their ability to carry out the roles they would have under the government’s reforms, findings released today suggest.

A survey of 185 primary care staff found 71 per cent said GP consortia are not well placed to run the commissioning budgets they are to be given.

Seventy-two per cent said changes to the reform plans, announced on Monday by prime minister David Cameron, did not reassure them. Sixty-eight per cent said his changes did not go far enough.

President of the medical practitioners union Ron Singer, commenting on the results of the survey, said: “The government has dismantled PCTs, but GPs have made it clear they are in no position to take over. The NHS budget is £80bn a year, and government changes have left no-one to manage it.”

Health secretary Andrew Lansley is due to speak at the Commissioning Show 2011 on Wednesday. The organisers surveyed 185 of those registered to attend.

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