The General Practice Services Committee (GPSC) was formed in 2002 and first met in January 2003 to begin as a trial effort to improve patient care and physician satisfaction in BC.
 
At the time, a dwindling number of BC’s medical school graduates were choosing family medicine as a career and a bulging number of GPs were nearing retirement.
 
The committee of four representatives from the BCMA and four from the BC Ministry of Health began looking for new ways to address the mounting problems of low morale and decreasing professional satisfaction among BC’s full-service family practice physicians.
 
The GPSC’s first step was to develop a range of new incentive payments in support of full-service family practitioners. The committee then held Professional Quality Improvement Days (PQIDs)—province-wide consultations -- with over 1000 GPs to hear their concerns, identify areas of family medicine that needed support, and get recommendations on how to support GPs.
 
Four priorities were identified:

• value us
• train us
• support us
• pay us

 
Six years later, the GPSC boasts more than 15 separate initiatives to improve the care patients receive and the way in which doctors deliver it. Through participation in these programs, a growing number of BC physicians are finding their way back to rewarding and efficient clinical practice.
 
The GPSC has two streams:

• the Full Service Family Practice Incentive Program (FSFPIP), which administers a variety of projects, including the Divisions of Family Practice http://www.divisionsbc.ca/, shared care networks, compensation for complex care, chronic disease prevention and management, collaborative mental health care, and more.
• the Practice Support Program (PSP), which offers focused training sessions for physicians and their medical office assistants (MOAs) to help them improve practice efficiency and to support enhanced delivery of patient care.

 
With the help of GPSC initiatives, BC’s primary care physicians are better able to meet the growing demands of caring for an aging population with more complicated conditions, and learning more advanced, continually developing technologies and medical therapies.Physicians are eligible to participate in GPSC incentive programs if they:

• have a valid BC Medical Service Plan practitioner number (practitioners who have billed any specialty consultation fee in the previous 12 months are not eligible),
• are currently in general practice in BC as a full-service family physician, and
• are responsible for providing the patient’s longitudinal general practice care.

 
The GPSC is working hard to effectively allocate the approximately $800 million over six years that was earmarked for primary care in the 2006 Agreement. The committee continues to develop programs to enhance the pivotal role of primary care physicians. Our goal is to support both those currently on the frontlines of health care and medical students considering the specialty of family practice.
 
GPSC committee members
 
Dr Bill Cavers, BCMA, Co-Chair
Dr Jean Clarke, BCMA
Dr George Watson, BCMA
Dr Brian Winsby, BCMA
Valerie Tregillus, Ministry of Health, Co-Chair
Nicola Manning, Ministry of Health
Judy Huska, Ministry of Health
Dr Garey Mazowita, Ministry of Health