GPs surgeries cannot cope with demand

THE BMA’s GP committee successfully secured an additional £321m for general practice in England in the past year. While this has helped struggling practices, it will take far greater levels of sustained investment to resolve the pressures on local GP services.

With rapidly rising workload pressures, practices cannot be expected to deliver a comprehensive service for as little as £151 per patient per year.

As the new figures in the BMA’s latest analysis of NHS spending on general practice show, the proportion of NHS funding going into GP services has fallen from 9.6 per cent in 2005/6 to 7.9 per cent in 2016/17.

GP services are effectively facing a £3.7bn funding shortfall because the Government has not reached the widely accepted goal of allocating 11 per cent of NHS investment to general practice.

The rate of extra investment has also noticeably slowed in the past year despite promises of an acceleration in resources to frontline patient care during the same period.

In this climate, many GP practices in England are struggling to cope with rising patient demand that is far outstripping current resources, especially as the profession is facing widespread staff shortages.

Recent BMA surveys have shown that a third of practices have vacancies unfilled for over a year and nine out of 10 GPs report their workload as unmanageable. More than half of GP practices feel they are under so much strain they are considering applying to have their practice list closed by NHS England. This is a shocking state of affairs that cannot be allowed to go on.

Patients need the Government to step up its funding commitment to general practice and deliver with greater speed its promised extra investment so that GP services are able to keep pace with the rising expectations and needs of the public.