I reckon someone is making ‘scapegoating dice’ and distributing them to those in charge. Any difficult situation can be solved by a roll of these magical cubes. The snag is every face of these shakers has ‘GPs’ written on it.
What else could explain the latest issue we’re to blame for? Apparently women applying for legal aid in cases of domestic abuse are being asked to provide evidence of this in the form of a letter from their family doctor.
As this service is not covered by the NHS contract, it appears some GPs are being ‘callous, insensitive and unjust’ by charging for these letters.
Now I don’t know about you, but if I were a minister faced with this problem I might like to suggest to the legal aid service that they might perhaps sort of, you know, ‘believe’ a woman in this situation and maybe not ask for a GP letter. After all, a letter from the GP will most likely only be a regurgitation of the facts the woman in question has reported to the doctor.
The dice know best though and I guess some adviser couldn’t resist the urge to spin this one into a story about greedy GPs.
Another suggestion mooted, was to make the writing of this type of letter an NHS service. Fine, tell us how much you will be paying for this and make it a DES.
It would be difficult to think of a more emotive way of trying to make GPs out as money grabbing. It’s always the same tiresome emotional blackmail, whenever the Government want us to work longer, harder or for free, they play the ‘patient will suffer card’. Well yes they will sometimes, but it’s not our fault.
If I ever receive such a request for such a letter I will be happy to write it for free as long as the solicitor representing them states in writing they too are working pro bono.
Oh yes and to all those politicians and police chiefs suggesting we’re avaricious, I’m sure you’ll be leading by example and will be refunding the exchequer with the salary you earned dealing with this?
Dr David Turner is a GP in west London
