Care resembles service industry

SIR, – The closure of the Rosemount Medical Group in Aberdeen (Press and Journal, August 17) is the latest in a sad saga.

Responsibility for the chaos lies at every level from university admissions to the bureaucracy that drives the committed to early retirement.

The equal-opportunities approach sees young women taking up more than half of available student places with vocational, social and economic benefits still attracting the scholastically best qualified. Yet in the real world with a large percentage of women inevitably working part-time this makes no economic sense when we need a scarce resource to be fully utilised.

In the past, general practice was truly vocational with doctors the hub of a community and often working far too many hours both day and night. Now with a restricted contract it is more like a service industry.

Part-time has become the norm and continuity of care has almost disappeared as has much of the identity of individual doctors.

Add to this, hours spent obeying government regulations and general practice has become less and less attractive. Is there an easy answer? Sadly levels of hypocrisy exist both within the profession and government making this unlikely – so is the ultimate answer the adoption of a fully state-run community service?