GP is changing because the needs of community care have changed over the past 30 years
So in addition to Practice Nurses & GPs there are many other clinicians in the team
Thread 🧵👇🏻
1.4million people a day consult a GP practice
Demand has increased (120% compared with 2019) but GP numbers have fallen (1800 fewer since 2015)
In order to manage demand additional systems have been needed as well as using different methods to consult, & additional clinicians 2/
With 7m awaiting hospital treatment, 10m awaiting follow-up appts, an additional 500k are on long term sick leave since 2019
In addition advances in medical care mean many more are on medications, & have regular reviews of care
People live longer, population has increased 3/
There have been many reasons why GP surgeries are struggling
Many negative comments
A lot of misinformation
But there are reasons for #GPCrisis 4/
The GP workforce is ageing
The Government has failed to address the issues of retention
Pension Tax
No income increase since 2005
Increased workload & bureaucracy 6/
We have to accept that funding across the NHS is not enough but the lack of investment in Primary Care leads inevitably to all the other parts struggling
10% of NHS budget spend on Primary Care 7/
An overview of the NHS shows all parts are struggling
Investment is needed in most areas
I would argue that General Practice is outperforming with 10% of the budget (£8bn)
Given sufficient it would help solve the current crisis 8/
GP Core funding is just £107.57/patient/year
@BMA_GP
@DAUK_GP has until now been using the average total figure £165 which includes premises payments, prescribing income & payments for QOF, which are not part of the core contract
Either way it’s not enough digital.nhs.uk/data-and-infor…
There are huge variations in the income receive per practice with even the average £165 hiding differences in dispensing practices vs non-dispensing
So focusing on £107.57 core GP funding reflects more closely what practices get to employ the staff to provide care for patients
The payments received from NHSE are increasingly linked to targeted or non-recurring payments, rather than core contract, making budgeting harder for practices
They’re used to provide all the services provided by a GP practice
An example of an average practice using £165 income
Richard Meddings - Chair of NHS England ‘Doctors are over-qualified’
Asked if it should be possible to train a doctor in less than 7 years
‘I would have thought so. Or you go to physician associates – so you change the skill levels’
Sajid Javid made Richard Meddings the chair of NHS England 2022
‘brings to the role a wealth of experience’, including ‘years of management in the financial services industry’, giving him a mandate to ‘change and reform’ the health service
GP Practices are closing, financially unviable, younger GPs leaving
some unemployed
Yet @NHSEngland @VictoriaAtkins @andrealeadsom are failing to fund GP Practices with a cut of 2% this year
20% £/patient real terms cut in funding since 2016
This is not News it needs repeating