By the way... Specialist doctorsare being pushed to the edge

ASK most people what a ‘physician’ is, and possibly many would be a bit vague — something ‘doctor-ish’ possibly?

In fact physicians are the specialist doctors who do not operate — that means cardiologists, rheumatologists, gastroenterologists, neurologists and experts in many other fields.

They are the thinkers who care for patients by making diagnoses and applying treatment for conditions that don’t require surgery.

Unfortunately for patients, there is something of a crisis in the world of physicians.

A few weeks ago, the president of the Royal College of Physicians told its annual conference that two out of every five posts for consultant physicians are unfilled due to a lack of suitable applicants.

This means that the physicians currently in

situ are working at full tilt, many already on a seven-day basis.

The fact is, the pips have no more squeak left in them.

But now the Government has its Big Plan to create a seven-day service. Notwithstanding that many of these professionals are already doing this, the question is how can they can be expected to do even more and still provide a safe service of excellence?

The Government wants the physicians to perform the medical equivalent of turning water into wine.

At the conference, the college president, Professor Jane Dacre, spoke about an email she’d received from a colleague who, on that Saturday, had completed a ward round, accompanied by one junior colleague, involv- ing seeing 83 — yes, eighty-three — patients. But this workload is not exceptional, for, as was pointed out, the number of hospital admissions has increased from 12.6 million in 2006-7 to 14.6 million in 2012-13, to be cared for by the same number, or fewer consultants.

Meanwhile, the junior hospital doctors are mounting strikes, driven by their disillusionment with the imposition of new contracts to force seven-day working on them, and general practice is in a state of crisis, with GPs t hreatening mass resignation unless something is done to address the critical shortage of doctors, with many trainee posts remaining unfilled.

The solution, or part of it, is that we need more doctors. The Government, however, seems to be waiting for some kind of miracle.