Mon 3 Jun 2019, 07:18 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER from Mark Langabeer, Newton Abbot CLP (personal capacity)
The BBC’s Panorama programme highlights the growing problem of getting a prompt appointment at a GP surgery. Panorama interview a GP of 28 years at the North West Road Medical Centre who described the current crises as the worst since the founding of the NHS in 1948.
His practice, in a deprived area of Plymouth, has 8300 patients which is 1300 more than 5 years ago. At one time the practice had four GPs, it’s now two. There’s a two-week wait for a face to face appointment with a doctor and there are between 50 and 60 consultations daily.
Demand for health care has risen as a result of an ageing population. There are 15 million people who have chronic conditions that require regular monitoring by GPs and other health professionals. In the last three years the number of GPs has fallen by 1000. Although GPs on average earn around £92,000 a year, the pressures of the job have resulted in many retiring early or working part-time.
The programme interviewed a doctor who had a breakdown and ended up on the sick for nine months. The doctor attributed this to cuts in other health and care services and placed an intolerable workload on her.
The fall in GP numbers has resulted in surgery closures or mergers. In 2014, Jeremy Hunt vowed to increase the number by 5000, however this increase has failed to materialise.
As in all aspects of life, it’s the most deprived areas that suffer most. Surgeries receive £120 per patient per year. The North West Road clinic is situated in one of England’s deprived areas, where chronic illness begins on average 15 years earlier than in the prosperous parts of Plymouth.
The most poignant moment in the programme was an interview with a father ,whose young son had died as a result of the delay in seeing a GP. A representative of the GPs believed that the current situation is so serious that it needs to be turned around quickly. In my view, it needs a Labour Government to end Tory austerity
