Lib Dem leader says GP appoints have become almost extinct in parts of Country!

 

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, says face-to-face GP appointments have become "almost extinct" in some parts of the country and does constitute a national scandal. It's known that many people who live in areas considered "socially deprived" find it difficult to get to see a GP.

According to a Lib Dems' survey, people who are struggling to access NHS services, are turning to self-prescribing and do-it-yourself treatments. Many are also turning to the private medical sector to get urgent medical treatment or pharmacies, A&E, or NHS 111, if they can get through.

Dr Adrian Boyle, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, says between 300 and 500 people are dying each week unnecessarily because of the consequence of delays and problems in accessing urgent and emergency care. He said a bad flu season was compounding systemic problems in the NHS.

Dr Richard Van Mellaerts, the deputy chair of the British Medical Association's GP committee in England, said the Lib Dems' call for patients to be given the right to see a GP within a week, was "an impossible task" unless the decline in the number of family doctors was arrested. A spokesman for the Department of Health, said that official guidance was clear that GP practices must provide face-to-face appointments alongside remote consultations and that in November, two-thirds of appointments, were face-to-face. They added, "As of September 2022, there are almost 2,300 more full-time equivalent doctors working in general practice compared to September 2019. There are also record numbers in GP training, and since 2019, we have recruited over 21,000 additional staff into general practice."

While it's often wise to question government figures and to treat them with caution, most of us are aware that much of the rot set in when many GP practices used the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to introduce fundamental changes within their practices. Many GP practices ended the walk-in morning surgeries and replaced it with a triage system of evaluation. They said they were doing this to minimize the spread of COVID virus. Many GPs became reluctant to see patients face-to-face and started to offer virtual or telephone consultations to their patients. As COVID lockdown restrictions got lifted in all walks of life in this country and we embarked on a mass immunisation program in the UK, the GPs continued to use the COVID pandemic as an excuse not to offer face-to-face appointments to their patients or to reinstate walk-in surgeries.

Yet, you could still see a NHS hospital doctor or nurse face-to-face or an optician, dentist, or chiropodist. The GPs stance made no sense whatsoever and only increased the burden and strain on the NHS and the emergency services. Unless you're a GP, nobody seriously believes that a telephone consultation with your GP is really a proper doctor's appointment or that a doctor can make a proper medical diagnosis over the phone. We know from coroner's inquests that many medical problems have sometimes gone undiagnosed over the phone and often with fatal consequences. How do you examine someone's blood pressure or chest over the phone? There have even been instances of GPs asking patients to cough into the phone.

We're told that we mustn't blame hardworking GPs who are doing their best under difficult conditions to meet the needs of their patients. No doubt many are doing their best under challenging circumstances. Yet, in contrast to many doctor's and nurses working in NHS hospitals who have no choice but to see patients face-to-face, most GPs do not work excessively long hours or work shifts. Many are self-employed, work on contract for the NHS, and work part-time. They can afford to work part-time because they are so highly paid. Some do highly paid agency work as locums.

Average earnings for GPs in this country are around £110,000 a year (3.1 times as much as average earnings), which is much higher than the pay of a GP working in France, which is a country with a far better health system than Britain. Countries such as Australia, Spain and the Netherlands, pay family doctors around twice the average wage.