Dr. Hamish Meldrum,
chairman of the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee (GPC), commenting
on the Government’s access announcement, said the Government was
failing to tackle the underlying capacity problem behind the current
difficulties in booking GP appointments.
“ This is trying to fix the problem without sorting out the underlying
cause. With a shortage of GPs, an acute shortage in certain areas, there
is bound to be a pressure on appointments. We have never said that, in
some parts of the country, there was not a problem with GP access. Where
we disagreed with the Government was over their particular 48 hour access
target because it made the problem worse. It skewed practices towards
a system of book on the day appointments.
_ Same day or next day appointments
are demanded by the Government in their access target for England.
If you book on the day, you either
have fewer appointments that can be booked ahead or you try to offer
more appointments overall. GPs are already working long and intensive
hours. It would not be in their interests, or in the interest of patient
safety, to ask them to extend those hours even more to build in additional
appointments.
_ You cannot create significantly more
appointments until you solve the capacity problem. In addition to workforce
issues, there is a lack
of investment in practice premises - if there is no funding to create
more space you cannot put in extra doctors or nurses to see more patients.
_ How exactly is the Government going
to guarantee this? We support measures to assist practices in making
best use of finite time but that
does not solve the underlying problem.”
On monitoring of present access targets Dr Meldrum said:
“ It is
an open secret that because of the pressures the Government has placed
on Primary Care Trusts, the monitoring has sometimes been manipulated
by PCTs. The monitoring measures availability of appointments on a given
date which may be notified in advance. If you have unrealistic targets
in place, people will find ways round them.”
Dr Meldrum added :
“ The Healthcare Commission said in their report
that, although timely access to GPs and dentists is important, the quality
of care that patients receive from their GP, dentist or midwife is also
crucial and according to patients, it is extremely good.”
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