GPC ready to fight off local QOFs.(quality framework)

Some NHS bodies want a totally local QOF, but the GPC has pledged to defend it.

GP leaders and health officials are set to clash over plans to introduce local quality framework (QOF) indicators in 2010, after responses to a DoH consultation revealed a yawning gap between their views.

The GPC and the RCGP believe that local indicators will undermine the uniform patient care achieved through a national approach. Local priorities should be tackled through local enhanced services (LESs), they argue.

But the DoH and the NHS Confederation want local flexibility in the framework, as does the Royal College of Nursing.

The DoH has suggested that local indicators would only form a small percentage of the framework. But others, such as the NHS Confederation, say the majority should be determined locally, with only a small …