Dominic Raab, who is the local MP to a practice which has announced GP redundancies, has said he will raise the issue with the health secretary.
Glenlyn Medical Practice in Surrey is making three GPs redundant due to ‘new ways of working’, including virtual appointments and the use of ARRS staff.
Mr Raab, the Conservative MP for Esher and Walton and former deputy Prime Minister of the UK, told the BBC he understood local patients would be concerned about these changes.
‘I will be seeking urgent meetings with the surgery to raise these concerns and will also raise this with the health secretary,’ he said.
The 19,000-patient practice invited its 11 salaried GPs to apply for voluntary redundancy in December after it ‘identified a need to make some changes’.
An update on the practice website said the team had made ‘improvements’ to deal with an increase in online requests and virtual appointments, and this has been ‘coupled with the introduction of many new roles’.
The news about the Glenlyn redundancies provoked a strong reaction from GPs online, and the Surrey and Sussex LMC told Pulse in response that GPs should be included within the ARRS programme.
The BMA’s England GP Committee chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, in an exclusive interview with Pulse, has recently warned that general practice has suddenly gone from a recruitment to an employment crisis, driven by the Government’s squeeze of practice finances.
In November, a Pulse survey of 612 GP partners revealed that there has been a 44% reduction in the number of GP vacancies advertised since the same month in 2022.
GP leaders attributed this reduction in vacancies to a number of factors, including an increase in the ARRS success in hiring staff and a lack of resources and space to house GPs.
And the chair of Urgent Health UK told Pulse that a majority of their OOH providers are now finding it ‘easier’ to fill shifts because there are more available GPs who may be struggling to find work at practices.
Since the scheme’s introduction in 2019, more than 31,000 ARRS staff have been recruited to work in general practice.
I think GP practices might be wising up to the dentist model. Some have setup private practices on the same site. Then it is a simple matter to shift the GPs over to the private practice and leave the ARRS with the NHS practice. Then in time people will switch as they were forced to do with dentists. It is a risk free way of doing it.
The NHS in imploding and this will be remembered as the beginning of the end. Pay to see a doctors. See a Noctor in the NHS for free. Poor service and delays all round.
Mark H have the rues about private income and notional/cost rent changed? If not and GP providing private service fromNHS funded buildings could be a very expensive move or have I missed something?
NS I am not up with the rules. But if you own your property you can in principle do what you like with it. And Inhave seen NHS property let to private physios. But the thought came to me when I read about a practice in Northern Ireland who had done this and suddenly that is exactly what the dentist model is.
To Mr Howson, you have indeed got out of date. NHS GPs are not allowed to receive any benefit from private services carried out on the premises and during time they are contracted to the NHS, whether they own their premises or not. In short an NHS GP contractor can only do private work outside normal working hours and somewhere else.
Regards
Paul C
Raab the bully to the rescue!!