Labour are continuing to make complete and utter fools of themselves, this time on the NHS:
This is total nonsense.
Doubling the number of doctors trained will make no health difference whatsoever in the UK if all 25 or 26-year-old doctors do, on completion of their training, decide that the NHS is offering them appalling working conditions meaning that they choose to move to Australia, Canada or New Zealand. Up to 80% are expected to leave this year, and Labour refuses to comment on a pay deal for them. That negates everything they say in this ad.
In addition, Labour does not seem to understand that GP training takes more than ten years in most cases, meaning it's unlikely that their plans will deliver a single new GP until about 2035. And the problem they are supposedly addressing (aboutt about which they are in denial) very clearly exists now.
Then there is the fact that many people who see GPs do not need face-to-face appointments. During my long Covid illness last year I did see a GP face-to-face. I also had another nine consultations on line, which was appropriate and saved both the GP and me a lot of time. To say a GP must see a patient who demands it will waste vast amounts of clinical resource for no good reason when resources are already massively limited. Politicians really should not interfere in clinical judgements on such issues.
Last, Labour should really not be silly enough to pretend that because a person wants to see Dr X on Friday then Dr X must be available. Doctors are human beings with their own lives. If it is suggested that they must be available at the behest of a patient whenever the patient demands there will be no GPs left. Their already difficult lives would become impossible.
And if you want to know how I know this, I have been married to a GP for nearly 25 years.
Maybe Labour should have asked a GP whether their advert made sense instead of making promises that they have literally not a hope in hell of delivering upon. It's crass incompetence not to have done so. And I am sure one of them would have found the time to talk, so I can only imagine Wes Streeting did not bother to do so.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
1. My GP practice occasionally gets trainee doctors in, so training extra doctors might help bump up staff numbers at offices that do this kind of training, but in turn it means extra workload for existing GPs who have to supervise them and give advice, so it won’t make any big difference to workload.
2. I have done phone based appointments, referrals to practice nurse staff, or pharmacies, if that is what the GP believes is the best way to get treatment. I agree it shouldn’t be a politician telling them how to do their job.
3. On record I have some named GP who is “mine”. I’ve never called up my local practice and asked to see them, I’ve always taken the view that whoever is available is fine. They’re all trained experts and have access to notes. Maybe that’s different for people with long term conditions, but I would imagine if they have long term requirements then GPs would be able to plan in advance anyway.
This reminds me a lot of what teachers have to deal with. There is now so much emphasis policies for education, monitoring, attainment, admin from higher up that teachers barely have time enough left to do the job they’re meant to be doing.
I am very surprised you have a named GP
The NHS does not require this and practices do not usually offer a name to anyone asking. The practice is their doctor.
When there were enough GPs we did have named doctors.
I moved here 13 years ago and there was a small surgery with not enough rooms for all the doctors. We now how a modern surgery with twice as many rooms, but only one doctor on at any one time. The GP who owned the practice left at Christmas, and now it is owned by another GP who runs another surgery in the next village which is the same size as this one, so has twice the number of patients.
When I had covid in September 2021 I caught it in hospital. I was on a covid ward for a week and so scared I discharged myself. That was on the Sunday. The next Friday I had a phone call from the GP at 5.00pm, asking me to go and collect an oxymeter before they closed at 6.00pm, as he had read the discharge letter and thought I ought to test my oxygen levels. I asked if someone could pick it up for me as I couldn’t go out of the house, which he should have realised as I should have been shielding according to the hospital letter.
Fortunately a family member, who lived not far away, could pick it up. My son and daughter in law had been making me food and leaving it on the kitchen table all that week.
I asked what would happen if I couldn’t find anyone to get the oxymeter, and the GP said it would be fine to pick it up on Monday. When I tested my oxygen levels on the Sunday, they were 77%. My son called 111 and they sent an ambulance to take me to hospital where I was on a different covid ward for another 10 days on oxygen. If I’d waited until the Monday I’d have probably been dead.
I have never seen or spoken to a GP since I came out. It’s as if having covid and now long covid was a minor inconvenience.
We don’t all have nice GPs who want to know how we are. I get a text message from a nurse asking me to go for an annual review for the list of medication I have. After I have had my blood test next week I will have a phone call from the nurse telling me that they might have to change something, and I will say not until I have seen a doctor to discuss it and seen the results of my blood test. The last time I said that they removed thyroxine from my repeat prescription. I have been on it for over 40 years since I had my thyroid removed, and someone in the surgery decided I didn’t need it any more. They won’t say who.
Sorry this is a long ramble, but it would be nice to know who my GP is.
But that is not your GP’s fault
They are probably dealing with far too many patients as they cannot recruit and so spend their whole life fire fighting
They probably don’t like it much either
OMG – what sort of turgid nonsense is this?
So – we’ll fix a crisis by offering your more choice because choice makes things seem better when in fact too many people are fighting to be seen at all. Never mind choice!! And choice gives people hope I suppose, it’s easier to sell but who’s buying? Not me!!
Unless of course – the private sector will be be increasingly brought in?
Nothing about improving pay & conditions for staff and doctors (how many who have left would come back?).
And nothing about preventative measures as well.
Laboured Gruel again.
I think this is an advert for private GP services
I hear you; (1) solves nothing and (2) and (3) seem to focus on some odd priorities.
But it does beg the question – What would you put in three bullet points each of 6 lines each that would address the concerns of most folk?
My effort would be…. errrr…. it’s harder than I thought to be that succinct yet still have some meaning.
So, seen for what this is – an electioneering slogan – rather than a manifesto I won’t get too cross.
I’d say
– We will properly fund the NHS
– We will restore doctors pay over time, ending the damage the Tories have done
– We’ll support more doctor trainers, and limit their student debt to that owed by the average graduate
Why not?
Starmer is a neoliberal and neoliberals believe the market solves all problems. But they seem to disregard the labour market, just like the oil market if there is shortage then the price goes up. So the labour market must operate the same way, when there is a shortage of doctors (the cost) or wages must go up.
In the short term surely what needs to be done is tackle demand for the NHS.
The local news website headlines a major road crash most days, resulting in deaths and hospitalisation. The Isle of Man Government imposed an island wide speed limit when Covid hit so their Doctors were not dealing with the inevitable idiot who had damaged a tree. Why not do the same on the mainland.
Similarly a large amount of NHS & Police time is spent dealing with drunks but no proposals to increase the price and reduce the availability of alcohol, unlike Scotland and Wales.
I could go on
All relevant points
Starmer could do with you
This is exactly the kind of policy that politicians without real policies come up with. Starmer talked about doing away with “sticking plaster” policies and here he is, coming up with a sticking plaster policy. Except this one is less useful than a sticking plaster. It’s middle management-type politics for politicians who are desperate to be relevant.
Pay NHS staff a decent wage. Give them the resources and support they need and let them get on with doing their job. By all means have consultations with GP/NHS leaders now and again to agree a general direction of travel, but don’t micromanage them.
I keep asking myself:
If the NHS is turned over to private business, who is going to actually be left to employ in the new health concerns?
It’s only a viable business if it has a ready workforce.
True
David Byrne says:
We need to take a dispassionate and objective view of the state of politics UK and economic performance. Opinions are interesting, but these are invariably driven by personal circumstances and individual priorities and beliefs.
For nearly 15 years the country has seen decline and destruction, and this can be readily observed by all. We have seen a massive shift in terms of power and wealth that benefits the few at the expense of all others driven by greed. Democracy is under threat directly and by stealth.
This massive change has not occurred accidentally, it has been caused by some people, people who have acted dishonestly and selfishly in an uncaring way without compassion for others.
The facts and the evidence are there for all to see.
We need better government by good people who have integrity and tell the truth. We need reinforcement of the democratic process. We need truly National (ised) Health and Eduction Services free at the point of need and use.
Personally, I would like to see proportional, representative government by the most able people. And I will not criticise Keir Starmer or others now for what they may or may not achieve in the future.
A number of points are missing from the current policy.
1. Where will all of the new trainee doctors and nurses come from? Are there enough young people with qualifications to fill the training roles?
2. The promises on community nursing numbers also leave the question of where are the community nurses/district nurses coming from.
3. Talking to a couple of practice managers I know they have identified that more and more new Gp’s don’t want to be self employed businesses but would rather be directly employed by the NHS. I think I have heard some talk from Labour about more employed GPS, but if this has been said it is not clear what the mechanism is to get there.
3. The previous Labour government established Primary Health Care Centres, to carry out minor procedures in the community along with a whole range of scans and other diagnostic services. Unless there is a clear plan for this to be expanded I fear that we will see a significant increase in US based firms providing these services either to the NHS or badged as NHS services but run for profit.
4 As others have said retention is key and this means improving the working conditions of staff across the board. There needs to be a commitment to bring the salaries of staff in the public sector back to their real term levels over a single Parliament and a clear workload reduction plan to limit the hours worked and the pressure staff are under. Without action on workload and stress all you do by increasing pay is buy a better quality coffin for staff. BOTH pay and condition need to be addressed.
5. All of the above are massive issues in themselves, taken together there has to be a rebasing of the NHS based on its original principles. My fear is that on Wes Streeting we have a future SOD who will use any review to bring in the private sector to “deal with the immediate problems” but once in they will incrementally increase their footprint in the NHS creating a marketisation of health on a for profit basis.
Then we have the elephant in the room care services, but that is for another thread I fear.
As a retired GP, here are my contributions:
The marketisation of health care by Labour and Conservative governments over the years has undermined the contract between patients and clinicians. From being seen as a common resource it is now viewed, especially by younger people, as consumer product as any other. The problem is that it is, mostly, free at the point of need (prescription charges excepted). The only restriction in a market is the ability to pay. So we have a market with no built -in restrictions, demand goes up and those that created this appalling system call for an end to free at the point of need.
General Practices are small businesses. In most practices there are a limited number of partners/owners and the rest of the clinicians are salaried. The profits that the business makes define the partners’ take home pay. The conflict of interest is hardly subtle. The employment of people like physician associates does make some sense, but always remember that that are cheaper.
GP’s work to an extremely complicated, target driven, centrally micro-managed contract which distorts everyday practice and is poorly evidence based. Recent changes, accelerated by COVID, have changed the work from being family/community focussed with a major emphasis on personal, continuing care to one where contractual box ticking is the order of the day
Labour has been complicit in this destructive process and trite, populist slogans will not compensate for its record in undermining one of the last vestiges of what was once a Labour tradition.
Martin
Thanks Martin
A good summary.
“GP’s work to an extremely complicated, target driven, centrally micro-managed contract which distorts everyday practice and is poorly evidence based.” I know this but most people don’t.
The next destructive absurdity coming down the road is the WHO Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response: International Agreement. All personal clinical judgement will be gone, with a lot of money gone with it.
Its not quite as bad as it looks.
1. Training more doctors is the long term solution to both rising costs and supply shortages. It won’t help much in the short term but its a good start.
2. Patients shouldn’t be forced to accept only telephone appts or online appts.
3. There are benefits of continuity of care .
That said it all smacks of Tony Blair’s promises. You knew when he made those that it was too little and his project was doomed from the outset.
Starmer is in the grip of the neo -Blairites who really believe in power is its own reward.
But if they get elected they will just act as caretakers before the next government committed to hoping things get better.
Its not heroic or much good to man nor beast but its a true reflection of the state of UK political imagination.
No one is forcing telephone only appointments
Least of all doctors. They triage. It’s the right thing to do and usually works well
David Marshall raises an interesting point about where is the new NHS workforce going to come from, and of course it isnt just the NHS but Police, Social Services etc.
The wide question is how many potential suitable candidates are there for these jobs, not just in terms of education but their wider ‘personality’ for want of a better term?
Ample
We have always managed before
We have just alienated them
Labour under Starmer will say anything they think will boost votes for them. I doubt if any promises will be kept. They also get funding from private health firms and as we know he who pays the piper calls the tune.
I did occur to me that people might wonder why Labour don’t promise to restore NHS pay – because the other promises they will pretend to do, though not in the way people are led to believe, whereas pay increases you cannot pretend to do.
Labour seem to be aiming at the gullible idiots who have no idea how anything works in real life with this appeal. Since that’s the political approach which worked with Brexit, they’re probably on to a winner here. I mean that seriously. When one takes into account Labour’s recent attack on Sunak concerning convictions for rape, t his including a period when he wasn’t even in any relevant office, it’s obvious they’re going after the idiot cohort, and there are a lot of them so this is probably sound policy. It doesn’t say a great deal for their opinion of the electorate, mind.
I do despair at where labour are getting their health advice from. This looks like focus group nonsense. My only possibly kind explanation is Labour are utterly paranoid about ensuring that nothing they say can be used by Tory MSM as evidence that “it’s the same old Labour Party”. But the problem with trying to ensure you don’t upset Tory media, is you tend to sound like a Tory. If this advert had a conservative badge on the top no one would bat an eyelid.
our GP surgery has been struggling to keep up with difficulties and staff and was relying on the two partners plus locums and trainee GPs to deal with for 4000 odd people in our time out of a total of 8000 – yes there is another sought surgery but they are struggling.
My wife is seriously unwell and was being managed by the lead partner. The end of March he told her that he’d had enough of the stress of trying to keep the business going and treat patients in this manner. After 30 years because of his wife’s own health condition he needs some stability and ability to be at home when she needs him.
So without telling any of the patients the remaining partner has linked up with a two-part partner practice in another town 10 miles away. None of the stakeholder patients appears to have been consulted on this change and we are now in the hands of rotating unknown parties . So, because I have ongoing issues myself I met one of the salaried GPs on Wednesday for the first time.
While I have every sympathy with these professionals, doing a difficult job with a lot of lack of resources, the lack of knowledge and understanding of someone who has a long-term and difficult medical condition, which is not well understood in the medical profession, has raised many fears in my mind.
Frankly I do not know how politicians can stand up and lie their heads off about the NHS when it’s their fault that the NHS is in full on disaster mode.
My advice to everybody is please do not get ill.
Unless you have to and then try to avoid contact with these people if at all possible because their methods will only depress you.
I hope you and your wife get better soon