GPS must face facts

There is a serious problem with primary care as evidenced by patients complaining about the difficulties they encounter trying to see a GP face to face. Organisations representing family doctors insist they are available for appointments even if that requires going through a triage system, often manned by receptionists, followed by a remote consultation.

This may well be true but it is apparent that many people find the system cumbersome, so much so that diagnoses of serious ailments are being delayed. In addition, the working practices of GPS are often inconvenient to patients, with evening and weekend surgeries unusual. Figures commissioned by the Department of Health show that the average GP is working a three-day week and their hours have fallen. These statistics were gathered before Covid and the pandemic has clearly exacerbated all these trends. Before Covid some 80 per cent of consultations took place in a doctor’s surgery but in August the figure was just 57.7 per cent.

GPS feel they are being unfairly scapegoated, and it is true that many surgeries are open. But instead of constant carping on both sides, the time has come to try to sort it out. First of all this requires GPS to acknowledge that there is an issue, something they seem singularly unwilling to do. It is in their interests to confront this otherwise they will continue to lose the trust of the public.

More widely, this may require reform of the primary care structure and greater synergy between the NHS and private health care, ending the ridiculous apartheid between the two which works to the detriment of patients. In the end, the NHS is there primarily for the people who use it.