By the way ... GPs just can’ t take on anymore patients

EVERY doctor I’ve ever met is determined to do the best for all their patients: that’s how we are, and any who lack that commitment invariably fall by the wayside.

Yet there is now a real risk that, following a vote, GPs in England will close their lists and decline to take on new patients.

Such industrial action would mean some people will be unable to register with a doctor, the cornerstone of NHS care — general practice accounts for 90 per cent of all medical interventions.

I have no doubt that unregistered patients with emergencies will still be treated by doctors as ‘temporary residents’, but those with long-term conditions needing ongoing care will find it hard to get continuity of care, which is vital for good outcomes.

We don’t have to look far to see why doctors are so angry that they feel the need to do this: GPs are struggling to find enough time to treat the patients already on their lists — thanks to population increases, greater life expectancy and an ever larger proportion of elderly patients, many of whom need increasingly complex care for multiple health problems.

To try to offset this, the Government has promised 5,000 more GPs. Though we all wonder where they will come from, and whether the increased funding also promised will ever materialise: there is little forthcoming so far, hence the threat from the GPs and the ballot for industrial action.

But what about the Hippocratic Oath, the moral duty for doctors to provide care for the sick? Its core theme is ‘I will utterly reject harm and mischief’. To force doctors to do more, with such limited resources, means patient care will suffer and we will inevitably end up breaking this oath.

And that is something we cannot tolerate as it destroys everything that we stand for. I fear industrial action is wrong, but I can see why it might be inevitable.