Reach agreement on GP safeguarding fees or risk legal action, judge tells local agencies.

Abstract

Local authorities, the police, and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) could face a mass of civil claims by GPs if they fail to reach agreement locally on whether fees are to be paid for doctors’ safeguarding work, a High Court judge has declared.1 Mr Justice Swift dismissed a judicial review test case brought by the BMA that argued that the local safeguarding arrangements plan in Northamptonshire was unlawful, a breach of the Children Act, or irrational in failing to consider how work undertaken by GPs would be funded. He said it was “unfortunate” that the BMA had taken such an indirect route to try to secure a ruling that GPs should be paid for producing …