BMA urges guerilla tactics

This is from HealthInvestor.co.uk (whose subscription code is broken at the moment):

The chairman of the British Medical Association has written to GPs encouraging them to use their commissioning powers to freeze the independent sector out of the NHS. Laurence Buckman said the reforms set out by health secretary represented a “potentially huge opportunity for GPs”, but he also said the developments represented a “major threat both to the current form of general practice and even to the NHS as a public service”. To mitigate this, Buckman urged colleagues to refer patients to NHS providers, rather than private or voluntary sector operators, whenever possible. Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA council, said this would effectively allow GPs to “bypass if not ignore” the government’s attempts to introduce competition into the health service.

This sounds like a plan :-)