Heal yourself, hard-pressed GPs to tell their patients
It is important that patients feel empowered to access self-care advice and support from other health professionals
DOCTORS have warned GP surgeries should not be the ‘first port of call’ for patients and insisted they should be looking after themselves instead.
They insist overstretched GP services should be used by people only if their conditions are serious.
The demand comes as family doctors warn they are on the ‘precipice’ because of chronic under-funding.
But last night critics said doctors should not ‘scare people off’ who genuinely need care.
A medical appointment has traditionally been the first step patients take when they fall ill. But many clinics are struggling to fill vacancies as more and more doctors quit.
A conference of GPs yesterday heard calls from Scottish doctors that the government must be more ‘honest and open’ with patients about the limited resources available on the NHS.
A motion to the BMA Local Medical Committees (LMC) conference in Edinburgh from doctors in Ayrshire and Arran said patients should get more advice on how to ‘self care’ instead of making appointments to see their GP.
The move means patients should go to pharmacists for remedies and advice on conditions such as coughs and colds, minor infections, hay fever and allergies and aches and pains. Research has shown that GPs spend on average an hour a day seeing patients for minor ailments that could be treated at home.
The Ayrshire and Arran LMC motion states: ‘The four UK governments need to be more honest with the public in terms of the limited resources available and should support self-care and empowerment of individuals to seek advice or care from other sources of service provision through national campaigns or media initiatives rather than primary care being portrayed as the first port of call for minor, self-limiting and social care issues.’
Dr Chris Black of the Ayrshire and Arran LMC said: ‘Governments need to be realistic about the resources available and help people understand how to make best use of them.
‘It is important that patients feel empowered to access selfcare advice and support from other health professionals where appropriate. For example, community pharmacists can support patients to manage minor illness like coughs and colds and also many other treatments.’
The NHS in Scotland has already begun a scheme to encourage patients to carry out more ‘self care’.
NHS Inform is a website run by NHS 24, the nation’s out of hours hotline. Last year it launched ‘self-help guides’ on frequent problems such as vompeople iting, earache and lower back pain.
But Scottish Conservative health spokesman Donald Cameron said: ‘There is intolerable strain on GPs, no thanks to the SNP’s failure to recruit them in sufficient number.
‘However, people need to be able to trust their local family doctor, and we need to be careful not to scare people off who genuinely need care.
‘All-round better investment in primary care would ensure are treated by the right person at the right time.’
Dr Miles Mack, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners Scotland, said: ‘General practice in Scotland is on the precipice. Politicians must end their under-funding of GP services.
‘We must secure appropriate funding, protect Scotland’s 226 GPs born in EEA countries, deal with the increasing need for mental health services, overcome difficulties communicating throughout the health service, modernise struggling IT systems, solve our severe health inequalities and even confirm
‘People must be able to trust GP’ ‘General practice on the precipice’
what the official definition of primary care is.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Everyone has and will continue to have the right to see a GP.
‘However, many Scots are already comfortable going straight to other health professionals like optometrists, pharmacists and physios.
‘We recently announced an additional £500million to be invested in primary care each year by the end of this Parliament. This commitment will mean that by 2021-22, for the first time, more than half of the NHS frontline spending will be in our Community Health Services.’