GPs get £100 for checks on people with learning difficulties

Family doctors are to be paid £100 a time for carrying out an annual health check on people with learning disabilities, after an official inquiry warned that they were suffering avoidable ill health and even premature death because their needs were being ignored.

The health secretary, Alan Johnson, has instructed the NHS to make improving healthcare for people with learning disabilities a priority and has admitted they have been the victims of "horrific health services failures".

But the British Medical Association has demanded that its GP members be paid extra for the annual health checks - and ministers have conceded. They have set aside £44m for special payments to doctors across England over the next two years.

The move comes just weeks after the Commons public accounts committee criticised "eyewatering" pay increases for GPs under a new contract that saw their salaries rise by an average 58% over three years while their working hours were reduced. The average annual salary of GPs is about £113,000.

Under the Disability Discrimination Act, businesses are required to arrange and pay for "reasonable adjustments" to their services to make them suitable for disabled people. As independent contractors to the NHS, GPs are bound by the act. However, the BMA has refused to agree to annual health checks without payment.

A BMA spokeswoman said: "This is over and above what is provided for in the national contract and a recognition that GPs will be doing more work for patients with a learning disability."

The inquiry into the healthcare of people with learning disabilities was published in July. Its chair, Sir Jonathan Michael, said local NHS primary care trusts should be directed to introduce annual health checks as a means of ensuring that reasonable adjustments were made.

In a pilot scheme in Wales, health checks among people with learning disabilities identified previously undetected conditions including diabetes, hypertension and asthma.

The checks in England will apply to an estimated 240,000 people. GP practices will be paid £50 upfront for each one and a further £50 after it has been carried out.

Learning disability charities welcomed the agreement. David Congdon, policy director of Mencap, said: "The view was that if £20m a year was all we were talking about to oil the wheels - in the context of £100bn spending on the NHS - then it was a price worth paying to win significant health gains."