The GP workload crisis is worsening, with a steady rise in patient consultations but a dramatic fall in funding for practitioners, according to the profession’s representative body.
The Royal College of General Practitioners in Scotland (RCGP) says the Scottish Government needs to act on the problem now and not wait for the new GPs contract to arrive in 2017.
Dr John Gillies, chairman of the RCGP north of the border, commended The Courier for highlighting the issue in our GPs in Crisis series this week.
The Tayside and Fife picture of patients waiting longer for appointments, having less time with doctors and GPs working under increasing stress is, he said, replicated right across Scotland.
“If we want to continue the service of family doctors that has cared for us so well, then that service must be adequately invested in. Current Government plans show no such investment,” he said.
The number of consultations GPs provide has risen by more than 10% over the last 10 years. At the same time as the workload is climbing, the funding for GPs has fallen dramatically.
He continued: “The Scottish Government invested only 7.8% of NHS spending in general practice in 2012/13. That’s a cut of a fifth from just eight years ago.
“If this trend continues, by 2017 Scotland faces a funding gap of 25% between what Scottish patients need and what the Government gives.
“Scottish Government announcements claim a 5% increase in the number of GPs but their own NHS Information Services Division revealed in their Primary Care Workforce Survey 2013 that the whole-time equivalent number of GPs has been fairly static since 2009.”
The RCGP has been running a hard-hitting campaign Put Patients First on the issue. Tens of thousands of Scots have signed a petition calling for action and it will be delivered to the Government next month.
The crisis could be easily solved by putting more resources into general practice to allow for more GPs, practice staff and better premises, he said.
“The budget does not offer direct funding for a single new GP in Scotland. When thousands of new GPs were recently promised for England by both the Conservatives and Labour, our own Government have remained silent,” he added.
“The situation is unsustainable. A welcome new contract for GPs is coming in 2017 but the situation needs action now.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said patients already have access to round the clock care.
They added: “Health boards and NHS 24 work together to ensure that anyone who requires to see a GP out-of-hours can do so.”