The BMA has criticised the Labour Party’s assertion that five million patients were unable to book a GP appointment, and warned that ‘demonising’ GPs will only make capacity problems worse.
The language used by the opposition party shows it is ‘just as ignorant’ as the current Government, which it blames for poor access, the doctors’ union said.
According to a Labour analysis, ‘around 1 in 7 patients did not get an appointment the last time they tried to book in 2022’, suggesting around 5.2 million patients missed out on an appointment in October this year. The party said this figure has doubled since October 2021.
Two million patients reportedly waited more than a month to see their doctor in October, while 4.3 million patients waited more than two weeks, its report said.
However, the NHS Digital data for October 2022 showed that GP practices in England delivered an estimated 36 million appointments – including around four million Covid vaccinations. This is the highest number since NHS Digital began publishing the number of appointments including Covid jabs in December 2020.
In October this year, 22.8 million face-to-face appointments were conducted, which represented 71% of all appointments – the highest proportion of face-to-face appointments since February 2020, when 80% of appointments were delivered in person.
And GPs themselves delivered 14.2 million appointments in the month of October.
Labour shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said he blames the Conservative Government for 12 years of ‘failure to train’ NHS staff, adding that the Government has left the NHS ‘with thousands fewer GPs, and patients are paying the price’.
Mr Streeting said ‘patients are finding it impossible to get a GP appointment when they need one’, adding that he worried that among those ‘millions of patients’ unable to get an appointment, there could be ‘serious conditions going undiagnosed’.
But Dr Kieran Sharrock, acting chair of GPC England at the BMA, said that ‘suggesting GPs are “denying” patients care, or “preventing” them from seeing a GP is disingenuous and inaccurate.’
He added: ‘Party leaders and ministers should know that a dwindling workforce is the real reason GPs cannot safely keep up with patient demand, so actively demonising GPs who are trying their best to deliver care is only making the problem worse, and encouraging more talented professionals to leave the NHS.’
According to the NHS Digital GP workforce figures published in October, the number of fully-qualified full-time equivalent GPs has fallen by nearly 1,900 since September 2015 and by 713 since 2019, when the Government promised 6,000 more GPs by 2024.
Dr Sharrock said GPs and their teams are ‘working under exceptional circumstances, with limited resource and support’ and should be commended for booking more than 32 million appointments in October.
‘Across the country, demand dramatically outweighs capacity, and we know it can be difficult for patients to get the care they need, when they need it.
‘We absolutely share that frustration, which is why practices often triage appointment requests to make sure patients can still see an appropriate healthcare professional, even though it might not be with a GP – for example, a practice nurse, or a physiotherapist based in the community.’
Dr Sharrock also argued that a Labour Government would be no better for general practice than Tories if they were ‘just as ignorant’ about its pressures.
‘There is therefore no point in the Labour Party criticising the current Government’s handling of the NHS if their take is just as ignorant about why the health service is struggling and what needs to be done to fix it. Changing this starts with using the right language, and stopping GPs – the cornerstone of the NHS – from feeling so undervalued,’ he said.
Labour’s findings come as MPs prepare to vote on a motion to abolish the non-dom tax status, which allows some wealthy people who live in Britain to pay their taxes overseas. Labour believes the abolishment of the nom-dom tax status will pay for NHS staff training.
Labour say the proposals would double the number of medical school places by training 15,000 new doctors a year, double the number of district nurses qualifying each year, create 5,000 new health visitor roles and also train 10,000 additional nurses and midwives every year.
But its assertion made it onto The Times’ front page this morning and comes as GPs have linked negative ‘media rhetoric’ with a string of unprovoked physical assaults in practices.
Giving evidence to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee today, deputy GPC chair Dr David Wrigley highlighted the problems to MPs.
He said: ‘We have got a workforce on his knees, who feel vilified day by day by the media, and by politicians who also sometimes take part in that. With a workforce that is just thinking “what is happening here?” “No, we’re doing our best for our patients. We’re trying hard.”
‘Just today in the media: “One in seven patients can’t get a GP appointment” – as if that’s our fault. We’re trying our hardest to see patients, to deal with them and treat them but when you when you haven’t got the resources… The staff morale is at rock bottom.’
Asked if the ‘1 in 7 figure is true’, Dr Wrigley responded that ‘it probably is’, but added that the reason for this is not GPs ‘denying’ appointments, but a lack of capacity.
‘Yesterday I saw about five patients because they were on a long waiting list 12 months to see a neurosurgeon with severe back pain, coming back to see me time and time again,’ he said.
Whatever you vote the government always gets in.
One trick pony politicians. They siphoned off the cash, and playing the break-to-procure game. Worth a few Bob to be bonest. But it is over. Pulse doesn’t need to focus attention on this. GPs got the memo long time ago, it’s all their fault. Move on please. The narrative is becoming boring.