Dr Beth McCarron Nash was reinstated as GPC negotiator last year, and by all accounts she is achieving great things.
Our panel said that Dr Beth McCarron Nash was ‘instrumental’ in achieving a halt to the NHS flagship data sharing programme, care.data, earlier in the year, thereby ‘protecting the sacrosanct GP-patient relationship’.
She takes this work forward this year, as well as being the joint lead for the BMA’s Your GP Cares campaign that is pushing for better funding for GPs.
‘What we need to do now is really up the ante,’ she says. ‘We have to ensure general practice works because we are the reason the NHS is successful and without us it will fail.’
She has warned of a ‘perfect storm’ of funding cuts, rising patient expectations and recruitment problems that could destroy general practice. But she is convinced the profession is ready to fight back.
‘I feel GPs are ready to do something about it,’ she says. ‘They have got to that point when they are ready to fight back.’
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