The worst of all worlds: that is the only way to sum up the shameful decision by more than 8,500 GPs to vote in favour of a strike ahead of negotiations with the Government over new contracts.
The impact on patients will be immediate, at a time when they are already facing a woeful service. The impact on hospitals is likely to be even worse, with patients seeking treatment for minor ailments crowding into emergency departments or dialling 999, adding to the pressure on an ambulance service already on the brink of collapse.
It is counterproductive and unnecessary. GPs, who have become increasingly unpopular since the massive disruption caused by COVID, are squandering what public support they have left. As a retired GP, this really angers me.
GPs will now be able to choose from a range of measures set out by the British Medical Association (BMA). Some of these are downright dangerous for patients, even though the doctors’ union claims that by implementing them, GPs can “support a safe service for their patients and their medical staff”.
The impact on patients will be immediate, at a time when they are already facing terrible service.
The most alarming of these proposals, and the one at the top of the BMA’s list, is to “limit daily patient contacts” to a “safe maximum of 25”. This may seem a reasonable limit when you consider that this means 25 traditional consultations averaging ten minutes each – over four hours of work.
But the reality could be 25 repeated recipes, made in a few minutes and with a stroke of a pen.
Other suggested courses of action include doctors ceasing to support voluntary services and refusing to sign up to enhanced online services that make it easier for patients to access information and support via the internet. These are all serious measures, calculated to cause major disruption to the NHS, at incalculable cost to the public. They should be a weapon of last resort, not an opening salvo.
If GPs would focus on explaining their concerns, they could win broad public support.
One of the BMA’s main demands is for the current referral system, whereby, for example, patients with suspected cancer are referred to specialists, to be changed. It is not right that this system should have an upper limit, as is currently the case, and that referrals should be rationed.
The new government has been in office for less than a month. The BMA is in a powerful negotiating position, as it clearly has the overwhelming backing of its members. The vote alone should be enough for Health Secretary Wes Streeting to realise that he has no choice but to make concessions.
But the BMA is acting as if the Department of Health has promised never to give up. GPs are being warned that the fight could last for many months and that strikes would continue long after Christmas. It makes no sense.
Labour is largely responsible for this crisis, given the astonishing speed with which it caved in to junior doctors, who were granted a 22.3 per cent pay rise last week.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting should be aware that he has no choice but to make concessions. But Labour is largely responsible for this crisis by caving in to junior doctors.
The Government has already pledged to increase GP pay by 6 per cent, but this has clearly not satisfied the BMA, despite the fact that the average full-time GP salary is more than £150,000 a year, with some earning up to £700,000, according to figures from the NHS Business Services Authority.
Getting an appointment with a family doctor is already stressful and frustrating – it often involves a long wait on the phone at 8am while slots are made available, often two weeks in advance. Elderly and disabled patients, who are often most in need of the service, are automatically at a disadvantage.
Public distrust of GPs is bound to increase if we see NHS doctors working for the government but also holding down second jobs in private practice. This will deepen the perception of a two-tier health service, where those who can pay more receive preferential treatment.
Britain has already become accustomed to a situation that was unthinkable just a few years ago, where patients see the health service as a kind of lottery: to get an appointment with the GP, you have to be lucky or wealthy enough to buy a golden ticket.
The new Labour government granted junior doctors a 22.3 per cent pay rise last week
This results in a breakdown of the unwritten contract between the public sector and health workers. Many people feel that they have to manipulate and cheat the system in order to receive any treatment.
Not so long ago, the ambulance service was regarded by almost everyone as a lifeline for real emergencies, such as strokes and heart attacks. Nowadays, I frequently hear anecdotes of people dialling 999 and exaggerating their symptoms in order to get a paramedic to treat them for a trivial injury, such as a sprained ankle.
The result is queues of ambulances outside emergency rooms, unable to unload patients, while people with life-threatening illnesses are left waiting for hours.
If the situation worsens, we will lose the entire National Health System as we know it. GPs are taking an absurd and scandalous risk, pushing the entire system towards total destruction when they are already in an advantageous position.
“Shameful” is too weak a word. They are betraying us all.