Columnist Dr Copperfield says the Government has turned its back on general practice by replacing doctors with cheaper, less-qualified staff
The puzzle-solving centre of the average GP’s brain is currently preoccupied by two conundrums. First, how the turbo-charged-wink-murder series The Traitors is going to pan out. And second, just what form of crisis general practice is actually in at present.
Regarding the latter, ‘the workforce crisis’ has been a given for so long that questioning it now puts you on a par with the average climate-change denier. But then we discover that locums are unemployed and salaried doctors are being made redundant, so it’s actually an employment crisis, right? Which was closely followed by the utter bombshell that financial pressures are resulting in some partners literally working for nothing. So, err, let’s think, that means it’s an income crisis, then?
You don’t need a lengthy and heated discussion at the roundtable to know where to finally point the finger here: funding. Income is dropping and expenses rising, so doctors are left unemployed because partners who can’t afford to pay themselves certainly can’t afford to pay locums or salarieds. Cue a poorer service and patients voting with their feet, which means shrinking list sizes and death spiral practices.
A way out of this might be, as so many have already suggested, to include GPs in the ARRS scheme. Hilariously, the apparent stumbling block to this is the ‘additionality principle’, but you’d have thought that a baseline of minus 5,000 could have led to some pragmatic rule bending. Or better still, a tipping of that funding directly into where it would be better spent, aka GMS.
In the interim, we have some serious head-scratching to do around what the Government’s endgame is supposed to be. Take your pick from any number of plausible theories. Mine is that they’ve twigged the punters can be conned into believing that loads of cheap noctors working through large networks can appear to be providing something that seems a bit like general practice. It’s an horrific illusion, but they’ve also realised that quantity (easier access), rather than quality (non-shitty care), is the vote-winner.
So, GP by GP, practice by practice, the Faithfuls are being murdered. We know who the Traitors are, and we also know that, if only we could lobotomise them, there could be a pot of prize money to save the day. But will Claudia allow neurosurgery in the next mission? It’s another cliffhanger. Cue the music.
Dr Copperfield is a GP in Essex. Read more of his blogs here
READERS' COMMENTS [4]
Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles
Has Copperfield ever stood for GPC/BMA?
I wish he would as he has the voice of the desperation of ordinary GPs
We do need a sensible alternative to the crass and corruption of the current government, who will not just continue private integration where it does not fit, and arms sales to war criminals.
Go on Dr Copperfield, stand for PM!
The threshold has been crossed and the profession is now standing on the road leading to the Valley Of Death, a place or period where annihilation is assured.
They have the “sticks and stone that will break your bones and your words will not hurt them”.
It is simple: it is a funding crisis.
And worse, it is part deliberate – from those who actively want us gone; and part accidental – from those who think we have to continue to give all the hospitals all the money no matter how ineffficient and unproductive they are, and so bemoan the fact that there is no money left for general practice, community services and mental health, and there is nothing they can do about it.