Overworked GPS aren’t being given their fair share of NHS resources

SIR – I write as a GP. Your leader (“GP contracts let patients down”, August 17) exposes a serious problem, but its cause is the chronic neglect and undervaluing of family medicine.

Until recently, British general practice was the envy of most other countries, and it remains the reason why the NHS continues to be rated as the most cost-efficient health service in the West. The answer is not to ditch it but to repair it.

Unacceptable hospital waits were reduced by increasing the number of consultants threefold, paying hospitals for increased activity and covering their overspends. General practice has had no such help but is now expected to manage a vastly increased workload with a decreasing number of GPS and a diminishing share of the NHS budget.

The number of part-time GPS is partly a result of these pressures. Our working day is far longer (and involves seeing far more patients) than that of our European counterparts, and it is miserable working in a system where we can no longer provide the personal care and access that we would like.

The answer is simply to give general practice its fair share of NHS resources and the same support that hospitals have been given. That would restore the concept of everyone having an available family doctor.

Dr Michael Dixon

Cullompton, Devon

SIR – It is disappointing to read that only 22 per cent of trainee doctors plan to work full-time as GPS after qualifying, with 42 per cent intending to take on lucrative locum work.

Given the high cost of training, surely those who qualify should be expected to repay that investment in them by working full-time for the NHS for at least the first few years after qualifying. Would it not be sensible for the cost of training a doctor to be seen as a loan, with, say, 10 per cent of that loan being written off at the end of each year of full-time work for the NHS?

Charles W Agg

Haxby, North Yorkshire SIR – A factor often ignored in the discussion of doctors’ working hours is the impact of withdrawal of personal tax allowance for those earning more than £100,000. Better to work four days and be taxed fairly than suffer a penalty for working five.

Michael Mcgough

Loughton, Essex

SIR – You are right to ask in your leader why someone being treated in hospital with a recurring complaint has to keep going back to their local surgery for consultations.

We agree that this is inconvenient and inefficient. The 14,000 community pharmacy teams in Britain already help patients to manage their longterm conditions and assist those with minor ailments. Pharmacies are convenient, accessible and often open long hours. Surely the solution is to fund more services in pharmacies.

Simon Dukes

Chief Executive, Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee London EC1