GP Leader Criticises Health Department's Bullying Approach, UK

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 22 Aug 2007 - 1:00 PDT

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Despite the vast majority of patients being satisfied with access to their GP practice, as shown in an £11 million government survey, the English Department of Health is adopting a bullying approach, says the BMA's GPs' leader.

Dr Laurence Buckman, the north London GP who chairs the BMA's GPs Committee, criticised the government for its aggressive heavy-handed approach and for failing to even attempt to talk to GPs about their plans. Responding to media stories surrounding a letter to local NHS bodies from Mark Britnell, Director of Commissioning at the Department of Health, England, Dr Buckman said:

"The GP Patient Survey results show that 84 in every 100 patients are satisfied with getting access to their local practice. Only four in every hundred patients said they were dissatisfied because they wanted evening opening and only seven in every hundred wanted weekend opening. It seems inappropriate to me to use this aggressive stance in ordering Primary Care Trusts to take action. It is also most unfortunate that the government has decided to threaten the NHS managers who it expects to make changes to GPs' services.

"Family doctor practice opening hours are agreed with the government and were established after long and careful negotiations. There are already provisions in place for primary care organisations who want to resource extra opening - very few have made use of these because they are not a good use of resources and because they reduce care for most patients during the day when most of them want to be seen. Offering GP services involves more than a doctor sitting in a consulting room - general practice in the 21st century requires an extended primary care team backed up by the diagnostic tests not usually available at evenings and weekends. If the government wants to talk to us, we'll listen, but we don't want to see them force practices to reduce the quality of care they can prove they provide to their patients.

"This is a long way from the co-operative and developmental spirit that the new prime minister said he was ushering in."

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