Seeing preferred medic now a lot more difficult

SEEING a preferred GP has got a lot more difficult over the past five years, research has concluded.

Academics also said changes made to try to remedy the situation have not worked so far.

Louis Levene and colleagues from the University of Leicester looked at 6,243 primary care practices with more than one GP in England.

They found the proportion of patients who were able to choose and see a preferred GP fell by a quarter between 2012 and 2017.

The decline was widespread and variations between practices were not dependent on factors such as population size or wealth.

The findings were based on a study of patients’ answers to two GP Patient Surveys.

Dr Levene, from the Department of Health Sci- ences, said: “Continuity of care – being able to see a preferred GP – helps many patients, but it has declined markedly in the past five years, an unintentional and inevitable casualty of the mounting workload pressures faced by general practices across England.

“Our study has shown that this decline is not linked to areas of poverty; it is slightly better for nonwhite ethnicity and slightly worse if you are elderly, living in the North or have a long-term condition.

“The recent changes to GPs’ contracts which aim to improve continuity have not worked so far. Continuity will improve only if its causes are tackled and the measures taken include sufficient resources being added or re-directed, so as to avoid harming overall patient care.”

The contractual requirement for patients to have a named doctor has, so far, not altered this steady decline in continuity, which coincides with longer waiting times for GP appointments, suggesting that workload pressures are, once again, creating problems for the doctor-patient ship.

Dr Levene said more detailed work within practices is needed to determine how much of the decline is due to workload, part-time doctors, or other factors.

He said improving continuity is unlikely to occur relation- until its causes are fully identified and the measures implemented to address these causes are feasible for individual practices without harming overall service delivery.

The study was published in the British Journal of General Practice.

Stanislav Yevetski, the Bulgarian actor best known for his role as Victor Krum in Harry Potter, was at the launch of new flights from East Midlands Airport to his home country, Bulgaria.