Stop demonising GPs and surgery staff, Sajid Javid – The Yorkshire Post says

TIME will tell if there are sufficient doctors – or not – after Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid set aside an extra £250m to help GPs increase face-to-face appointments.
By YP Comment
Published 15th Oct 2021, 05:55 BST
Health Secretary Sajid Javid meeting Dr Clementine Olenga-Disashi (left) and Dr Ali al-Bassam, during a visit to the Vale Medical Centre in Forest Hill, south east London, following the announcement of the blueprint for improving access to GP appointments and supporting GPs and their teams.Health Secretary Sajid Javid meeting Dr Clementine Olenga-Disashi (left) and Dr Ali al-Bassam, during a visit to the Vale Medical Centre in Forest Hill, south east London, following the announcement of the blueprint for improving access to GP appointments and supporting GPs and their teams.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid meeting Dr Clementine Olenga-Disashi (left) and Dr Ali al-Bassam, during a visit to the Vale Medical Centre in Forest Hill, south east London, following the announcement of the blueprint for improving access to GP appointments and supporting GPs and their teams.

After all, general practice was suffering a chronic staffing shortage, and a dearth of ‘locum’ doctors to plug gaps in rotas, before this was exacerbated by the Covid pandemic further.

And by setting out plans to effectively ‘name and shame’ those surgeries that do not meet unspecified Ministerial targets on appointments, Mr Javid risks alienating GPs and inciting the indefensible verbal abuse that some surgery staff have received from disgruntled patients.

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Far from being a pragmatic solution that begins to address the national shortage of doctors, and an acknowledgement that there will be some minor cases or consultations that can be handled effectively and efficiently via the telephone or Zoom, the Government now finds itself on a collision course with the medical profession.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid speaking to media during a visit to the Vale Medical Centre in Forest Hill, south east London, following the announcement of the blueprint for improving access to GP appointments and supporting GPs and their teams.Health Secretary Sajid Javid speaking to media during a visit to the Vale Medical Centre in Forest Hill, south east London, following the announcement of the blueprint for improving access to GP appointments and supporting GPs and their teams.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid speaking to media during a visit to the Vale Medical Centre in Forest Hill, south east London, following the announcement of the blueprint for improving access to GP appointments and supporting GPs and their teams.

Instead it should be imploring GPs to resume face-to-face appointments where appropriate – and this newspaper shares the frustration of those seriously-ill people treated unkindly – while looking at ways of enhancing surgeries as the gateway to the NHS.

After all, it is the prompt diagnosis of illnesses – or advice to lose weight in order to lead a healthier lifestyle – that will ease the longer-term burden of a National Health Service which now faces a decade-long task cutting waiting lists in the wake of the Covid pandemic. Such an approach may not provide Mr Javid with instant headlines – but it is the more responsible remedy.

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Related topics:GovernmentYorkshire PostZoomNHSYorkshire

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