Medical Practices Committee.

Abstract

Though it affects all general practitioners, the Medical Practices Committee and its workings are little understood. It was set up to implement the principle of the National Health Service that there should be adequate numbers of family doctors throughout the country, and the way it classifies an area may affect con? siderably the general practitioners practising there. In areas considered to be overdoctored, for example, it may prevent doctors taking a partner or setting up in practice, while doctors in severely underdoctored areas may be entitled to substantial financial allowances. The MPC's principal function is to control the distribution of GPs in England and Wales (there is a separate MPC for Scotland, and Northern Ireland has different arrangements). It does this by considering all applications for inclusion on the medical lists kept by family practitioner committees and by reviewing the need to fill practice vacancies. Its actual controls are negative ones: the MPC cannot tell doctors where to go, but it can tell them where they may not practise. The MPC also acts as an appeal body on decisions by FPCs to refuse the employment of assistants or allow the use of surgeries that have been used by another GP. Doctors may also apply to the MPC for a certificate to show that partnership arrangements do not include the sale of goodwill (which is forbidden in the NHS).