Brackley Medical Centre uses Facebook to tell patients why GP services are so stressed
A Brackley surgery has used Facebook to tell its patients why GP services are so stressed and why it’s so hard for them to get an appointment.
Brackley Medical Centre has posted a BMA (British Medical Association) poster to explain that, in the last five years, GP services have lost £660 million of funding.
And surgeries are not allowed by the government to use the funding they do have to recruit more GPs or practice nurses.
"This is why you struggle to see your GP,” the poster says.
The issue affects GP surgeries all over the country including those in Banbury, Brackley and Chipping Norton areas.
GPs are currently voting on whether to take ‘collective action’ which the BMA says is the ‘one and only opportunity to come together as a profession to protect sustainable NHS GP services for our patients’.
Collective action would take place from August 1 and would include such things as restricting the number of patient consultations, per GP per day, to 25 (the recognised safe working maximum level).
It can also mean GPs will stop or reduce work they’re not formally contracted to do, but which has because of pressures elsewhere in the NHS, been passed onto them, without any additional money. This is on top of not having enough funding to carry out their own essential care services.
It could also include the completion of fit notes, prescriptions or investigations which should have taken place in the hospital setting, or asking Trusts to communicate with patients about re-booking hospital appointments.
GP and BMA member Dr Phil White said: “The service hangs on a precipice, the funding has been slashed. (Government) continuing to ignore the vital role that General Practice plays in the national health service is a grave mistake.
"Over the last ten years GPs have been expected to look after 33% more patients while the number of full-time GPs has decreased by 24%.”
He spoke of the risks to patient safety and the personal toll it was taking on GPs with a survey showing that ‘80% of GPs fear their high workload is detrimental to patient care; morale is low, with many considering their exit’.
“Practices are finding ways to stem rising costs – with many reducing existing staff hours or stopping recruitment entirely which all adversely impacts on workload. This is a crisis” he said.
GPs are seeking a new contract for GPs that provides the investment needed to transform, rebuild and reinvigorate general practice. General practice currently receives 7p in every NHS pound. Erosion of the funding contract since 2018/19 is worth £659 million – 6.6% and over 1,300 practices have either closed or merged in the past decade.
Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of the BMA GPs committee, said: “A ‘constructive dismissal’ is what general practice across England is witnessing.
“We are not allowed to spend any of the funds provided by government to hire staff on GPs or new practice nurses. It’s no surprise that we are seeing thousands of unemployed GPs. This is a national disgrace.”
NHS England said: “General practice is undeniably the bedrock of NHS care… General practice provides over 300 million patient consultations each year.”
- GPs saw a funding uplift of 1.9% in April.