No magic doctor tree: Javid’s £250m mocked
A FAMILY doctor has ridiculed a Government proposal to hire more doctors so more patients can be seen face to face, saying there is no ‘magic locum tree’.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid’s £250million winter rescue package is aimed at enabling GP surgeries to take on more temporary staff.
But Dr Jess Harvey, a partner at a practice in Shropshire, said it had tried without success for a year to find a maternity locum.
Dr Harvey, of the Much Wenlock and Cressage Medical Practice, said: ‘The Government has spoken in the past of there not being a magic money tree. They need to understand there is no magic locum tree either.
‘There are not enough locums nationwide. This isn’t just a Much Wenlock problem or a Shropshire problem, it’s a national problem.’ The medic said general practice had suffered from chronic underfunding for years.
Mr Javid said his cash package will ‘tackle underperformance, taking pressure off staff so they can spend more time with patients and increase the number of face-to-face appointments’.
But Dr Harvey called the comments ‘insulting’. She said: ‘Where’s his evidence we are underperforming? Our patients are being seen. GP surgeries have delivered over 70 per cent of the vaccine programme, in addition to our usual workload.’
She said her surgeries see a third of patients face to face, with the rest by phone or video call – which she said could be beneficial in a rural area where patients might face a 40-minute journey.