Patient, heal thyself: SNP’s vision as GPs replaced by nurses
PATIENTS will be told to ‘manage their own problems’ and GPs will be replaced by nurses and pharmacists in the SNP’s new vision for the health service.
Amid a crisis in NHS Scotland, the National Clinical Strategy f or Scotland released yesterday by the Scottish Government suggests training is the solution.
It says patients should be taught to cope with their own health issues to encourage ‘ self- management’ and reduce our dependency on the NHS.
An answer to the GP crisis is to train nurses to do work previously carried out by doctors, it suggests. Meanwhile, pharmacists can be given ‘ extended roles’ to help care for patients with long-term medical conditions.
The strategy lays bare the Scottish Government’s vision to fix the NHS’s struggles following reports of cancelled surgery and patients trapped for almost 24 hours in A&E.
It states that, for many older people, hospital is the fall-back option, when they could be treated at home. Keeping them out of hospital will mean less pressure to find beds for the ageing population, as well as avoiding harm through unnecessary treatment, it says.
The plan also suggests some patients could be treated better in the community, or sent home more quickly following surgery, with patients who once spent ten days in hospital after a hip replacement already being discharged within 48 hours.
The strategy advises using specialist units for complex operations so that surgeons in one place do more of them, cutting the risk of error.
Against a backdrop of surger- ies which have closed their lists and failed to recruit new GPs, it raises the importance of phone or online consultations to monitor patients instead of face-to-face appointments.
The Government has announced an increase of 100 GPs in specialty training places and Nicola Sturgeon has implored retired family doctors to re-enter the profession. But, admitting GP recruitment will be ‘challenging’ for the next decade, it advises using nurses and pharmacists to deliver traditional GP roles, stating that they can provide services of ‘equal or improved quality’.
This follows fears expressed by the Royal College of GPs that the Government sees GPs as ‘dispensable’.
Lib Dem health spokesman Jim Hume said: ‘ Patients’ access to local services looks set to get worse. Meanwhile, the First Minister is barely waking up to take notice of the ticking timebomb that is the recruitment crisis in our NHS.’
However, the Royal College of Nursing in Scotland cautiously welcomed the strategy and the use of multi-disciplinary teams to help ease the pressure on doctors. Director Theresa Fyffe said: ‘The bold changes implicit in this document could transform the way our health and care services are delivered.’
Health Secretary Shona Robison said: ‘Scotland has the highest number of GPs per head of population of the four UK countries and under this Government the number of GPs working in Scotland has increased.’
‘Recruitment timebomb’