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Researchers link 30,000 excess deaths to NHS and social care cuts
GPs will be ‘consultant physicians’ in 20 years, says NHS England medical lead
13:20 In Scotland, patients are waiting in early morning queues just to register at a GP, writes Scottish RCGP chair Dr Miles Mack in the i.
He goes on to argue: ‘We need a serious increase in the resource that general practice is given. It has been cut in percentage terms for a decade and the draft budget, while offering a welcome change to that, is only a small step in the right direction.’
First minister Nicola Sturgeon has pledged an extra £500m in funding for general practice in Scotland by 2020/21 – set to bring primary care funding to 11% of the NHS total budget in the country.
Dr Mack writes: ‘If Nicola Sturgeon’s £500m per year is to really make the difference it promises, as much of it as possible must be spent through GP surgeries. Realistically, the alternative just isn’t there.’
12:30 Former RCGP chair Professor Clare Gerada is celebrating 25 years of general practice today, in the same South East London GP practice. She is celebrating this with a series of tweets on continuity of care.
Happy anniversary to me.25 yrs working at Hurley today. On way to do clinic:much has changed over yrs -but not my excitement of being a GP
— Clare Gerada (@clarercgp) February 17, 2017
25 yrs today.Working at same practice with same patients & community, same manager and Drs. Continuity is the key to general practice.
— Clare Gerada (@clarercgp) February 17, 2017
25 yrs on seeing patients whose grandparents I looked after #iloveGP
— Clare Gerada (@clarercgp) February 17, 2017
09:40 A research report linking 30,000 excess deaths to NHS and social care funding cuts has ‘drawn an angry response from the Government’, reports the Guardian.
The study, which is also our top story today, questions the Government for not looking into the causes of a rise in deaths.
But a Departmentof Health spokesperson described the study as ’a triumph of personal bias over research’ and said there was a ‘variation’ in death rates every year.
The report’s co-author,Dominic Harrison, the director of public health at Blackburn with Darwen council, said the report had ‘been published in good faith in a peer-reviewed academic journal by senior health professionals who are concerned to understand the causes of avoidable death in the population – precisely so that we can avoid it happening again’.
