BMA GP committee chair Dr Richard Vautrey and health secretary Sajid Javid held an ‘emergency’ first meeting yesterday about the abuse currently being suffered by GPs.
In the meeting, the BMA called for ‘clear public backing for GPs’ acknowledging ‘the huge pressure they are under’, urgent investment in primary care to ‘remove unnecessary bureaucracy’ and a Government commitment to work with the BMA on ‘a national campaign to stop the abuse of NHS staff’.
It comes as a man has been charged with assault after attacking four staff members at a GP practice in Manchester on Friday, and the Prime Minister backed a Daily Mail campaign for ‘default’ face-to-face appointments.
Dr Vautrey said the meeting ‘allowed us to make it crystal clear how unacceptable the increasing abuse against hardworking and dedicated GPs and the general practice workforce is, fuelled by a damaging and demoralising misinformation campaign in some parts of the media, as well as comments from politicians’.
He said the BMA told the Government it has to ‘explain to the public that more patients than pre-pandemic have been able to access their GPs, whether that’s via the phone, online consultations or in person’, as a ‘priority’.
He added: ‘The secretary of state must confront the reality of unsustainable workload pressures, poor premises, the impact of the care backlog and secondary care work transfer to general practice and we urged him to trust practices to deliver services to patients without the rigidity, bureaucracy and burden of QOF or unnecessary CQC inspections.
‘We also called for far more action to enable practices to expand their workforce and for the Government to deliver on its commitment of 6,000 more GPs. Words are not enough, we now need urgent action.”
The BMA also told Mr Javid to support increased prison sentences for those who assault healthcare and emergency workers, following the Manchester attack.
It follows a letter sent on Tuesday by BMA council chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul to the health secretary, demanding an urgent meeting about support that could be offered to GPs to manage ‘the unprecedented rise in workload to meet the needs of all patients’.
The letter also condemned the Government for siding with media outlets who are ‘scapegoating’ GP practices over patient access.
NHS England’s primary care medical director Dr Nikki Kanani asked to meet with GP staff who were assaulted in Manchester last week, to ‘help prevent future attacks’.
READERS' COMMENTS [12]
Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles
Did they present the results of a survey?
It’s not a BMA meeting without a survey.
BMA with prostatism trying to pee into a gale!
After graduating from Exeter University, Javid landed a job with Chase Manhattan Bank. By the age of 25, Javid had become the Bank’s youngest-ever Vice President. In 1992, Javid moved to New York where he campaigned for then-New York Mayoral candidate, Rudy Giuliani. After returning to the UK, Javid took a senior job with Deutsche Bank____Enjoy the empathy, compassion and consideration that will be oozed from that meeting.
What a joke! Daily Mail says nasty things about GPs. Tories love it when workers are demoralised. The only thing that will wake them is when there is a collapse of the service…..like with fuel delivery.
All I would like to share with you , once again , is the quote from Lord Varys from my most beloved TV series in recent time :
The riddle –
“In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it,’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it,’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it,’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me – who lives and who dies?”
* Tyrion’s immediate response is, “Depends on the sellsword.”
* Varys immediately counters by asking, “Does it?”
‘’Power Resides Where Men Believe It Resides. It’s A Trick. A Shadow On The Wall. And A Very Small Man Can Cast A Very Large Shadow.”
The Health Secretary has already backed the Mail’s campaign, saying: ‘I am committed to ensuring everyone – no matter who they are or where they live – can choose to see their GP face to face
As reported in our favourite journal
The choice to rest with the patient, not the GP.
It is difficult to envisage how much clearer he could make it. Now which part of that explicit simple statement is the BMA misunderstanding.
Imagine more colour in books to follow. Great help to weather the abuse. Next- hopefully there will be some protection from abuse from NHSE, CQC, HMG and associates
And there is no tacit nod from the government to the gutter press? We saw it when Tony Blair needed a scapegoat – and GPs are a very decent and compliant target,
Good that they spoke, will it change any thing really? I seriously doubt that tories will take any take any responsibility.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqbk9cDX0l0
Says it all really.
We know they met.
We know what message GPC and BMA gave to the SOS.
What message did he give back?
And what practical actions did he commit to?