Labour has pledged to remove ‘burdensome’ bureaucracy that is ‘grinding GPs down’, in return for continuity of care.
Labour’s shadow health minister Karin Smyth said during a speech at the Institute for Government’s annual conference today that the party will ‘remove targets’ that take GPs ‘away from the things that really matter’.
Ms Smyth, filling in for shadow health secretary Wes Streeting who was unable to attend the conference due to illness, said: ‘We will set a Red Tape challenge for GPs and remove the unnecessary bureaucracy and targets which GPs say take up their time, and takes them away from the things that really matter.
‘In return, we will bring back the family doctor, so patients can see their regular GP each appointment, if they choose to.’
She added that GPs are experienced doctors ‘made to do millions of tick-box appointments’.
‘They’re even made to fill out forms about how burnt out they are. If ministers bothered to ask GPs why they are so exhausted, they would know it’s largely down to burdensome bureaucracy grinding them down,’ she said.
Last year, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said GPs should focus on caring for patients ‘rather than the admin that comes with effectively running a small business’, which would involve patients being able to self-refer.
Earlier, the party has revealed plans to conduct a shake-up of GP services to create new ‘neighbourhood health centres’, if it wins the next general election.
However, GPs have said that while measures to cut bureaucracy will be welcome, the focus needs to be on fairer funding for general practice.
BMA GP committee chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer said that it was ‘great’ hearing Labour’s vision for the NHS and that ‘the answer’ is to ‘fund GP surgeries’.
However, Plymouth GP Dr Rachel Ali, speaking on behalf of the Rebuild General Practice campaign, said: ‘GPs absolutely should be focused on seeing and treating our patients, doing less admin and cutting out the bureaucracy.
‘But this alone won’t fix the crisis in general practice. Rebuild General Practice has been calling for a plan to retain GPs, fairer funding, and greater autonomy within our profession for years.
‘We ask all parties to listen to GPs so we can fix the broken system, which continues to have negative knock-on effects for all of the NHS.’
In October, Mr Streeting said that he recognised the ‘value GP partners provide’, after spending time in general practice.
He also said he ‘made it very clear’ to hospitals that any funding that becomes ‘available’ under a Labour Government would go to primary care and other non-acute sectors.
Earlier this year, the Labour party promised to ‘bring back the family doctor and guarantee face-to-face appointments to all who want them’.
READERS' COMMENTS [9]
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Cutting bureaucracy is the standard lazy political soundbite spouted repeatedly every few years. But it never happens. And it is tiresome.
“Patient ,not paper” was slogan more than 2 decades ago by government of the time..
Yawn
Bureaucracy that will still be enforced by CQC
Removing “unnecessary bureaucracy and targets” sounds like it might involve cuts to QOF and related funding. Providing and proving continuity may also require another load of bureaucracy, as well as creating workload.
Within the last 4-5 months everybody has changed their tune from ‘we don’t have enough GPs’ (including the govt, the medical reporters, LMCs, national newspapers, RCGP and GPC) to the noise about ‘locums cant get jobs and GPs are unemployed’ to now its a ‘funding crisis’. So did nobody have a bloody clue how many GPs we need or what the real problem is! – IF everyone knew about the funding being the key issue then why not do something about that rather than harp on about that we need more GPs(which we do). We are still paralysed about taking the decision about strikes or not. Even if we weren’t going to strike boycotting ICB and PCN initiatives and refusing to engage with CQC would have been more of a productive step.
Now its all hands on deck for ARRS roles being bad and bureaucracy being the problem. We just seem to be chasing our tails continually.
HMG DH NHSE have successfully exploited years of weak reactive non-proactive GPC leadership
When you need a COSH notice for fairy washing up liquid, you know it has gone too far.
What total BS. Full time is now 6 sessions so even if you wanted to, you would struggle to see the same GP over and over again. Fund them, remove annual allowance completley so GPs don’t pay to work, and some might come back to working a little more. No? Thought so.