Give 'em the money (Barney).

I don't know enough about the workings of the NHS to be able to comment on the Government's plans for reform, but what I do know, as an ex-manager, is that the closer you can get control of the budget to the "sharp end", i.e. the people actually producing the product, the better. What tends to happen is that between the money and the producers of the product there are various layers of management which are concerned more with the budget than the product, so it's the product that suffers.  I was certainly of the opinion that if I had been in control of my own budget, I could have run my office better for about two-thirds of the cost.  So certainly the idea of giving GPs control of their budgets strikes me as sensible.