Waiting times to see a GP doesn’t bode well for the NHS ahead of a difficult winter - Jayne Dowle

Steve Barclay’s acerbic comments come after it emerged that civil servants are predicting long hospital waits this winter, with as few as six in 10 patients expected to be dealt with at A&E departments within four hours.

OK, so I’m not on the verge of death (I hope). It’s just a headache-related thing I would like to check out. And I would prefer to see a doctor face to face if possible.

I think, if my memory serves me correctly, the last time I went to my GP for myself was 2018. So I’m hardly a serial malingerer.

When I finally did get through to the surgery on Monday you would have thought that I was asking for the GP to actually come to my house, put the kettle on and sit holding my hand for an hour. The receptionist – and I have friends who do this job, so I do know that not all surgery staff are the same – who I have never met, interrogated me as to the nature of my problem. I told her that this wasn’t something I wished to discuss over the telephone with someone who isn’t a doctor.

Why do they need to ask this nowadays? I find it intrusive. Is it so we can be ‘triaged’? Well, as a fifty something woman who’s had two children, I think I can be the judge of when I can nip to the chemists to sort myself out or actually ask a qualified professional for their learned opinion.

Anyway, I didn’t say any of this, obviously. Could she please just tell me when the next face-to-face appointment might be available, with an extra ‘please’ for good luck?

August 25. In 18 days’ time. Now let’s be honest. If an 18-day wait for a GP appointment is the norm in the middle of August, what’s it going to be like when the NHS is facing the triple threat – seasonal flu, another Covid wave and the fall-out from the cost-of-living crisis – that Health Secretary Steve Barclay is warning about?

It is absolutely clear to anyone with even a passing acquaintance with the health service that there are going to be massive problems this autumn. It affects us all, young, old and in the middle.

My parents will both turn 79 this winter and have several serious conditions, including heart failure, between them. My mother-in-law relies on her regular GP and clinic appointments to keep her mental and physical health in check.

And whilst we all know that the NHS needs more government money, more investment, more acceptance that staff must be invested in and retained, there are clearly some questionable things happening with funding which cannot go unremarked.

As I hung on the phone on Monday afternoon, I scrolled through my phone, catching up news stories I might have missed. I came across a row about an NHS website funded by the Welsh government, aimed at demystifying stigma around periods. Apparently, it’s having a gender-neutral refresh, omitting specific mention of girls and women. It’s just one example of a number of NHS public information sources being reworked in this way.

Now, I’m very respectful of all genders and none. And I spend my working days wrestling the right words into the right order to put across a message in the clearest of terms. So I do understand the power of the English language. And I also accept that English owes its peerless dynamism and abundance to the fact that it is constantly evolving. What we now recognise as ‘English’ has always borrowed, reflected changing nuances and dumped obsolete terms. But really?

Is rewriting public information websites really the biggest priority that a number of NHS bodies can think of right now?

Is there nothing else more pressing? Like ensuring proper GP cover for a start, to help people who need it and prevent them having no choice but to go to A&E or to suffer in silence and end up with an incurable terminal condition because the only appointment on offer was a video call?

Lancashire-born Mr Barclay, a constant fixture in Cabinet since 2016, sounds like he is getting his teeth into his new job. I’m glad. I hope that he manages to stay in post when the new Conservative party leader and de facto Prime Minister is decided at the beginning of September.

Under this zombie government, the NHS has ended up in a chronic condition and it certainly needs an emergency shot in the arm. Mr Barclay, known as a straight shooter, could be the man to deliver it.