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Unfair media coverage worsening GP workforce crisis, finds study

Unfair media coverage worsening GP workforce crisis, finds study

‘Inaccurate and unfair’ negative media coverage of GPs in UK newspapers is ‘contributing to workforce stress and the retention crisis’, a study has found.

‘After brief and occasional mention of GPs as part of the “heroic” response to Covid-19 in early 2020, many UK newspapers returned to portraying GPs in negative terms,’ research by the British Journal of General Practice has highlighted.

Researchers analysed reporting on GP remote consulting in nine national newspapers after NHS England announced in May 2021 that GP surgeries had to ensure they were offering in-person appointments, and also after it released a directive to improve GP access in October 2021, with focus on increasing the number of in-person consultations.

‘No articles from either time period reported on positive patient experiences,’ found the report UK newspapers ‘on the warpath’: media analysis of general practice remote consulting in 2021, with the report also noting that ‘morale in general practice is at an all-time low.’

The research found newspaper articles ‘depicting the difficulties patients have accessing care, but omitting key context – vast increases in demand and task-shifting from secondary care.’

Even at the start of the pandemic, when the shift to remote care was widely considered a sensible measure, ‘the significant work required by healthcare staff to enable a safe standard of remote care’ was often overlooked by the press, the research found.

The report said: ‘Comments by the media and government ministers suggesting that GPs were offering fewer appointments – and even sometimes conveying the impression that surgeries were closed – did not reflect what was happening in practice.’

The researchers found that although the number of in-person appointments was lower than pre-pandemic levels – 5.3 million in August 2021 versus 8.8 million in February 2020 – the number of telephone consultations almost trebled from 2.2 million in February 2020 to 6.2 million in August 2021. As such, the total number of consultations increased from 11 million to 11.5 million.

‘Negative media coverage matters not just because it is inaccurate and unfair,’ the report said.

‘It may also reduce patients’ confidence in general practice and prevent or delay them seeking care,’ and ‘there is emerging evidence that it also contributes to workforce stress and the retention crisis.’

The researchers said they had observed ‘a significant rise in anti-GP rhetoric,’ with ‘some journalists using remote consulting as a platform to criticise GPs for not fulfilling their professional duties, and thus further fuelling the GP crisis.’

The report suggests more research is needed to understand how different consultation formats, and combinations, can ‘maximise value’ for different patient groups and different providers, suggesting there is ‘significant scope’ for researchers and practitioners to contribute to media reporting and to broader public engagement around the ‘complexity of remote consulting’ in general practice.

‘This might help to minimise polarisation,’ it says, ‘so practitioners and patients can be better supported with situated judgements on consultation formats, as we transition into the next phases of the pandemic.’


          

READERS' COMMENTS [3]

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Julia Visick 4 October, 2022 7:20 pm

Very much a report of the bleeding obvious, but useful in a small way that I am not alone in feeling continuously flogged by the media. It is one of many reasons as to why I am no longer prepared to stay as a GP partner …

Patrufini Duffy 4 October, 2022 8:55 pm

Why doesn’t the NHS confront this fact: that not everyone in the workforce actually cares anymore. They might not be whistleblowing you, but they’re not that stupid. Your old donkey tricks and media mates, and dry lazy winding up of the public against a profession and boring old dog tricks, is a mere plan of the elite – to keep the public separate from the powerful classes and at the door of the good doer, the target of distraction. Old trick, new world I’m afraid. The institutes will crumble. Healthcare staff are at a premium, even American corporates are paying high wage for them, and you Gov.Uk will face the public wrath and riot in not too long a future. Be ready, they’re really not all a pleasant rosy lot. When you promise them something like gold, but there isn’t any, they’re going to come for you, and only you. And yes, our doors will be firmly shut. The high street buildings will be no more. You’re going to be stuffed at your unwise doing. And not even the dentist is going to come and save you.

David jenkins 5 October, 2022 11:56 am

so practitioners and patients can be better supported with situated judgements on consultation formats, as we transition into the next phases of the pandemic.’

what sort of drivel is this ?

the other day i had a bolshy woman who was in my face demanding to know why she had to wait for a hospital appointment – that’s right – an appointment with a proper doctor in a shiny building. i explained it is HER appointment – SHE needs to phone (consultant’s number given) to chase THEM. no good chasing me. i gave her a copy of the referral letter, just so she could verify it had been done.

i further explained that i am retired, aged 72, and working off one lung – because i USUALLY enjoy it.

i further explained that, because i had had “quite a lot of abuse from patients recently” (not her, obviously !) i would be taking two weeks off work, and that for the next two weeks, there would be even fewer doctors in the surgery. i explained, calmly and patiently, that if joe public carried on having a go at us because the HOSPITALS are not doing their jobs, the joe public would actually be making their own problems worse.

she stormed off in a huf, with “harumph”!!

imagine my surprise when she returned an hour later with a box of shortbread to say “sorry” !!