So I saw 10 minutes of the One Show last night - yes I know, kill me now before my brain dribbles out of my nose - and something really pissed me off. They were interviewing a GP about the difficulties in running a surgery.
One GP at the practice was off on holiday and they were reluctant to hire a locum to cover over the break. This was due to the high cost and the impact that would have on them being able to provide a service. The GP said that it was often 7 or 7:30 each night by the time the admin work was done and late finishes were not uncommon. The offspring of the GP was in his fifth year in medical school and said he didn't want to become a GP as he had seen the effect of the long hours. There were clearly a number of issues.
I agree, I don’t think anyone should have to do such long hours. I was reminded of how many hours my mother worked (at pretty shitty jobs) to make ends meet when she was doing her degree, evenings and during the holidays were always busy, there were only the two of us but money was tight. Even after graduation when she eventually got a job as a lecturer she would often be doing lesson preparation, or doing marking late into the night, even on days where she didn't finish work at 9pm. Like laddo above I didn't want to follow in those steps and thought that being a lecturer was a mugs game as you appeared to have the piss taken out of you by the employer.
A GP probably makes a little more money than a lecturer (a lot more?) but even so it is unreasonable to have to work such long hours.
“What”, the presenter asked, “do you think the answer might be?” Well, apparently there are a lot of patients that turn up with minor ailments or other unimportant issues and these are very time consuming, these people are effectively time wasters. The answer, said the GP, was to charge for appointments as the health service was underfunded and needed to make up the money some way and put off the time wasters.
Now, that is surely a conflation of multiple points.
Firstly, assuming that there is nothing wrong with the person turning up to see a GP there is an education issue, or an awareness issue on the part of the people making the supposedly ‘unimportant’ appointments. This may hide other problems, not necessarily physical, perhaps some of these are appropriate for a GP and perhaps some are not. How should this be addressed? The idea that these unknown people that would be put off might be 'time-wasters' is also a bit of an assumption.
Secondly, this would disproportionately affect the poor, those on low incomes and benefits. What would happen to them, would the go to A&E instead, or ignore the early detection of a potentially serious condition?
Thirdly, this is an about face on one of the founding principles of the NHS, that it is free at the point of need. It sounds like further opening the door to privatisation - there’s enough of that already with Tory MPs reaping the rewards of their seats on the boards of various ‘health’ companies.
Fourthly, if the money needs to be made up then why do it in such a time-consuming way which would almost certainly not be at all cost effective. If there is a shortage of funding for the NHS then that funding should come from central government.
Of course as this was the One Show there was no discussion about any of the points made, they were accepted at face value. It was also interesting to see that for someone with all the expense, paid for by the state, of becoming a GP how little grasp there was of the realities of life for people, and how little thought appeared to have been put into that statement about charging for appointments.
My points may not be particularly clear or as well aimed as I would like, but what do you want for a 10 minute consultancy session?
Rant over.
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