Dr Mary McCarthy: Stop playing games and fix the NHS
The National Health Service has been described as the pride of the UK and akin to a religion in being a standard that all the population believe in and take comfort from.
It was introduced in July 1948 and was designed to cover all health care, "free at the point of use – from cradle to grave".
Those ideals continue to dominate the ethos of all who work in it, giving rise to extraordinary generosity of time and resources on the part of its staff, who feel they are working for the common good and are ready to stay, far beyond the end of their shift, if they feel it is needed. However, despite front-line staff working flat-out, the system can't cope with the sheer number of patients coming through the door.
As a GP I care immensely about my patients and I am as concerned as they are by the constraints impacting on health services, which are undermining our ability to do the best for them. GPs are constantly fire-fighting to provide the services their patients need in the face of increasing workload pressures, the worsening state of GP premises and the rising number of vulnerable patients for whom the standard 10-minute appointment is simply not enough.
A major new survey from the British Medical Association has shown that across the country, GPs are seeing first-hand the effect of this unsustainable pressure on patients. Of the 15,560 GPs that responded, over 90 per cent feel that their heavy workload is having a negative impact on the quality of patient services.
At our practice, we have 5,500 patients, and on average, each patient will see their GP about six times a year.
As the population ages, our workload increases, which combined with diminishing resources means we are forever running out of time, out of space, and out of energy.
Despite the current crisis, the political response has been a series of headline-grabbing initiatives and sticking plaster policies to bail out emergency departments, rather than developing a long-term solution.
The BMA is calling on politicians to stop playing games with our A&Es, and to commit to having an open and honest public debate to find real solutions to the problem.
