Generation Prime ‘expects GPs to deliver instant service’

A LEADING GP has said the “Amazon Prime generation” has unrealistic expectations of instant service from the NHS which is driving patients’ dissatisfaction with family doctors.

Dr Ellen Welch, author of Why Can’t I See My GP? said patients at local surgeries “want an answer to their problems straight away” and can become abusive if they do not get what they want.

Speaking to The Telegraph Magazine, she said a breakdown in the relationship between patients and GPs, who are facing an ever-increasing workload, is part of the reason so many GPs are experiencing mental health problems and suicidal thoughts.

According to one doctors’ support group, the NHS loses a doctor to suicide every three weeks, with overwork blamed in many cases.

Dr Welch said the perception among some patients that GPs have become lazy could not be further from the truth, with many working 12 or 14 hour days with no lunch break and coming in on days off to catch up with paperwork.

The BMA recommends GPs have no more than 25 patient contacts per day, including face to face meetings and telephone or Zoom calls, but 100 patient contacts in a day is not unheard of.

Dr Welch said: “People want an answer to their problems straight away. Reassurance isn’t enough, people want access to tests and the NHS isn’t set up for that.

“We are open to abuse. A GP in Manchester had his skull smashed by a patient but we all get verbal abuse regularly, people telling us we are f---ing useless. I had a patient this week who put in an e-consult request at 10am; I spoke to him at 11am and he still wasn’t happy.”

Dr Welch said such patients were part of the “Amazon Prime generation” who are used to ordering goods online and receiving them on their doorstep the next day or even the same day, whereas GPs often have to refer patients to another layer of the NHS to see specialists or for tests, which can involve long waits.

RUSSIA has attacked a town near Kharkiv in its first significant cross-border attack since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The surprise dawn attack on the border town of Vovchansk near Kharkiv comes as Moscow intensifies its offensive ahead of a US weapons deal to resupply Ukraine.

Videos on social media showed Russian forces firing a barrage of Soviet-designed

Grad missiles towards Vovchansk, which lies 45 miles from Kharkiv.

Russian Telegram channels said there was an attempted breakthrough by ground forces but Ukrainian military commanders said they had repelled the assault.

Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Administration, said: “There were unsuccessful attempts by Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups to break through the border.

Not a single metre has been lost.” In a separate attack on Kharkiv, authorities reported that at least two people were injured in an intense Russian missile attack that destroyed 26 houses.

Residents have drawn up plans to flee Kharkiv if the situation deteriorates, while one Ukrainian MP said that schools there have now closed.

Top Russian officials have started talking about Kharkiv as a target again for the first time since Russia’s military retreated from the outskirts of the city ‘There were attempts by sabotage groups to break through the border. Not a single metre has been lost’

in September 2022. Russian forces have been dominant across the front lines for the past eight months as they leverage their bigger arsenal and troop numbers.

The British Ministry of Defence said that Russia increased its attacks along the front line by 17 per cent last month. The US-based Institute for the Study of War said the Kremlin was determined to push its dominance of the battlefield.

“This reflects current battlefield conditions and the intent of the Russian military command to secure gains before the arrival of Western military aid to the front lines,” it said.

The Kremlin has moved quickly to bolster its army, having secured weapons deals with North Korea and Iran last year, converted civilian factories into arms factories and sent thousands of convicts to war.

US politicians, meanwhile, had delayed for months a major weapons deal with Ukraine, only passing the £48 billion package at the end of April. Ukraine has also struggled to recruit new members to its military.

Analysts said that although Russia enjoys a clear material advantage, its progress on the battlefield has been slow, and that the threat to Kharkiv may have been overstated.