Boost funding for GPs!

LIke hospital care, general practice is under intense and growing pressure due to soaring patient demand and a lack of resources.

We shouldn’t blame a contract drawn up more than 12 years ago for the state the NhS is in now, or criticise women GPs for wanting a career and a family. We must focus on the real issue: not enough resources to meet demand.

The general practice workload has risen by 16 per cent in the past seven years and become far more complex.

yet despite being the vast majority of patients’ first contact with the NhS, investment in our service has fallen and the number of GPs hasn’t risen in step.

If GP practices shut during core hours, GPs might be delivering care to patients through telephone, online consultations or making home visits.

We believe the NhS is still the envy of the world, but to keep it that way, we need a well-resourced general practice service that can deliver excellent care to our growing and ageing population, and alleviate pressures across the health service, including in our A&e departments.

Prof HeLeN sTOKes-LAMPARD, Royal College of GPs, London NW1. ouR local NhS GP practice has nine doctors. In a five-day week, if just six hours a day were available for appointments, with ten minutes given to each patient, that would add up to 1,620 consultations.

yet the doctors are all part-time and between them provide just 792 consultations a week, so the practice misses out on a potential 828 appointments each week.

Name and address supplied. IT’S not just GP facilities that are unavailable at weekends. There are no hospital X-rays, scans or tests, even for in-patients. There are no clinics, no phsyio, podiatry, administration or managers. And if a GP refers a patient for an X-ray or scan, it takes three or four weeks to receive the results.

sHeILA HODGsON, Plymouth, Devon. My LoCAL health centre has eight registered doctors, about 14,000 patients — and no appointments available before February 11.

I visited it on January 12 at 10.30am to collect a prescription, and the place was almost deserted. I was there for 15 minutes and saw no more than a dozen people. one person was called in to see a doctor, the rest were seen by practice nurses.

Considering all the publicity about overcrowded A&e units and the strain on GP services, I can’t see why this practice was just ticking along. What were those other seven doctors doing on a Thursday morning?

R. D. NeAL, stockton-on-Tees.