As a GP, while I warmly welcome any injection of funding into primary care for all the reasons Wes Streeting has mentioned (quality of healthcare delivery, patient experience, earlier intervention reducing pressure on strained and more expensive hospital services), I question whether his recent investments will actually achieve this (Wes Streeting: I will defend the tax rises funding 8.3m GP appointments, 6 May).
There is more money going into core general practice this year. But GPs are also employers, and the vast majority of their expenses are on staff. They are not exempt from national insurance contribution rises, and in fact the recent increase in funding will just about cover the NIC increase – this is unfortunately a case of the government giving with one hand and taking with the other.
Improved premises are absolutely essential, but they come with increased service charges for practices. These are not paid centrally, but out of the same budget that pays staff salaries and that ultimately provides appointments. The result is that shiny new buildings mean less money to provide appointments for patients rather than more.
If we really want to increase the number of appointments, we need a really significant injection of money into frontline general practice to cover these hidden increases in expenses.
Funding has fallen so much over the last 10 years, but a big increase is what is required if we are to create a health service that functions well and efficiently. GPs desperately want to do more and see more patients (this is why we trained for all those years), but our hands are tied if we don’t have sufficient funds to provide these services.
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