Star comment: GP idea a challenge to deliver
The NHS is under more pressure than ever before. People are living longer, science has created a vast array of new treatments and demand is at an all-time high.
Politicians on both sides of the political divide appreciate the need for a lean and efficient health service, although there is passionate debate about how that should be delivered.
Prime Minister David Cameron believes our NHS can do more to help the ordinary citizens of the UK. He wants GP services to be available seven days per week, so that everyone has access to proper health care.
It is a laudable idea for we all know how difficult it can be to obtain an appointment with our local doctor. Many have suffered a loss of wages or worse by missing a day's work in order to obtain medical treatment.
Providing a more accessible GP service would, therefore, be a step in the right direction. It would also ease the pressure on local hospitals, to whom people frequently turn when their GP is off duty.
However, like so many pre-election promises, the devil will be in the detail. The public, as well as the medical profession, will need to know how the newly-accessible GP service will be administered and funded.
Providing seven-day-a-week GP services will be a challenging task, not least for those charged with providing care in rural Shropshire and Mid Wales. Surgeries that have low numbers of employees will find it difficult to find staff to stay open. And who will cover the costs of additional hours, where they are required?
GP services and the NHS at large face acute demands on their time. So we should treat Mr Cameron's pledge with a degree of healthy scepticism. Such a scheme will cost hundreds of millions or pounds, or more. Will those who work on Sundays and bank holidays receive payments for being on duty during anti-social hours? How will the public purse cope with that commitment when Chancellor George Osborne has spoken this week about the need for further public service cuts?
It is heartening that the Prime Minister views the NHS as being of top priority. Yet the public will need to be convinced that this new system will work. There is little doubt that this pre-election gambit is the sort of offering that many will welcome. But if Mr Cameron is elected, the public will expect him to deliver.
See also: David Cameron's seven-day GPs plan impossible say Shropshire medics
