Letters August 20: Warning over collapse in GP numbers

THE Government’s plans to recruit thousands of extra GPs and introduce seven day opening are undeliverable as new figures reveal that one in five GP trainee posts in England remain vacant (The Yorkshire Post, August 18).

Yorkshire and Humber is one of the worst-affected areas in the country with a third of vacancies unfilled. This is at a time when local GPs are already unable to cope with the current pressure, and patients are understandably frustrated at the lack of appointments and delays.

The issue is that while demand has been continuing to rise, the Government has failed completely to provide the support that local GP practices need, to offer their patients the time and care they deserve. That has had a damaging effect on GP morale and well-being, with many doctors getting close to burn-out; young doctors are no longer choosing general practice as a career; training places are going unfilled and senior GPs are choosing to leave the profession.

The failure to recruit new GPs is happening at the same time that a third of existing GPs are intending to retire in the next five years. This combination represents a threat to the delivery of effective care to patients, as there will be too few GPs to meet their needs.

The Government must stop burying its head in the sand and address the real issues facing the GP workforce. Ministers need to undertake a sustained, long term programme of investment in general practice that gives GP services the ability to cope with rising patient demand and makes it an attractive career option for all medical graduates.

Mystery of the police chiefs

From: Hugh Rogers, Messingham Road, Ashby.

WHAT is this new organisation The National Police Chiefs’ Council which has lately sneaked into our lives?

Does it replace the longstanding and reasonably respectable Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)? If so, why was the change made, at what cost in terms of the police precept (our money!) and what, if anything do we, the public get out of this newly created talk shop? Apart from unhelpful comments on burglaries, of course.

I suggest that a new organisation called UCPOA (the Useless Chief Police Officers Association) should be formed immediately. By holding regular meetings, it will at least keep the more eccentric Chief Constables off the streets and out from everyone’s feet, allowing real police officers to do the job of protecting society, for which we pay them.

Question 
of freedom

From: Aled Jones, Bridlington.

I AM increasingly of the opinion that there is no left and right in politics, just freedom and tyranny. To me, as a Eurosceptic, there is a stark choice before us: the ruthless ideology of a European super-state or a British society that holds on to its unique traditions and sovereign independence.

At the end of the day, no freedom-loving citizen of this country wants to be taxed by the faceless European Parliament, be subject to hare-brained European laws, be defended by an interfering European army and be obedient to a common EU currency whose value is determined by Frankfurt. In the profound words of GK Chesterton: “We must go back to freedom or forward to slavery.”

Fracking 
is a gamble

From: R Webb, Wakefield.

IN response to Arthur Quarmby (The Yorkshire Post, August 15), fracking is still in its infancy and already there are problems with water supplies in the USA. The USA and Canada are much larger countries than England.

Don’t be fooled by the maps used on many television programmes which show our country to be bigger than France when it is not.

We should wait at least 10 years and learn from the mistakes of others. The gas will still be there. To gamble now would be a mistake.

Treasures 
of Rosedale

From: Elisabeth Baker, Leeds.

WHAT a lovely picture of the view from Chimney Bank (The Yorkshire Post, August 17). However, I was distressed to read in the accompanying item that some poor nuns (sic) from Jervaulx and Rievaulx, who must now be at least 500 years old, are required to stand as a reminder of those Abbeys as they were. They must be really exhausted by now.

Perhaps if the equally unfortunate treasurer (sic) of Rosedale had been left alone and the contents of its treasury had been confiscated instead, we should have been able to see some ruins of this Abbey, too.

Page turner

From: John Watson, Leyburn.

PICKING up my daily paper at breakfast time, I was surprised to see a large photo of the Batley Bulldogs rugby league player Keegan Hirst, who has decided to “come out”. Why, when the world is full of news, do we have to have this story taking up good space on the front page of probably the best provincial newspaper in the country?