OK, I’m starting to get it now.
A ‘new deal’ from Jeremy Hunt involved nothing that was new, nor any sense of deal. And so it wasn’t a new deal.
A ‘workforce review’ by the Primary Care Workforce Commission was told to sidestep GP staffing levels, in its review of the workforce. And so it wasn’t a workforce review.
And the RCGP’s announcement that ‘there has never been a better time to be a GP’ actually now reads that ‘GPs are so knackered that patients are in danger’. And so there has probably in fact been a better time to be a GP or, if you’d rather, this is not the time when there has never been a better time to be a GP.
So nothing is actually as it appears.
Which is great news. Because the great contractual monster supposedly heading our way is, of course, seven day access. But when Jezza says seven day access, what he must mean – given that even he can’t impose changes on the laws of physics and physiology – is a primary care hub offering out of hours cover to the whole locality’s patients on some kind of funded and relatively painless rota basis, rather than us opening and staffing our practices 7/7. And so it isn’t seven-day access.
Doubtless, we’ve imagined all of the above. It’s been a workload and stress induced hallucination. Don’t believe me? Ha. Next you’ll be telling me that Jeremy Hunt really has been chased by a tuba.
Dr Tony Copperfield is a GP in Essex. You can follow him on Twitter @DocCopperfield
