Your story on the potential recruitment boom sparked by the NHS reforms talks about the replacement of experienced GPs with locums as if this were some kind of great opportunity for the profession.
News - Commissioning to prompt GP recruitment boom as consortia chiefs warn: 'We're spread too thin'
It's the opposite – we will see fragmentation of care, loss of continuity and damage to the doctor-patient relationship.
A transient bunch of locums providing care while established GPs go off playing at being managers is the antithesis of what our profession is supposed to be about. But maybe it's apt – it mirrors the fragmentation and loss of values that we will see when the NHS becomes a fully competitive market. So the GPs leaving their patients to be seen by ‘any willing doctor' won't feel out of step with what is going on nationally.
From Dr Louise Irvine, Lewisham, south London, via pulsetoday.co.uk
