Problems getting to speak to, let alone see a GP in person are just one part of an assault on primary health care and the NHS in general.
Here is what is happening:
- The number of GPs is falling while patient numbers rise making the workload for GPs unsustainable.
- 1 in 4 GPs know colleagues who have taken their own lives due to work pressures.
- Even before the pandemic Britain was lagging way behind European countries. In 2019 Portugal had 224 and Belgium 115 GPs per 100,000 people . . . Britain had 69! There are now 2,200 patients for every GP.
- Locally, the following practices are run privately: Greenwich Peninsula Practice (Evergreen Solutions Ltd), Clover Health Centre, Woolwich (Malling Health (UK) Ltd), Thamesmead Health Centre (Centene – huge US firm). The sole owner of the Malling Group was David Hugaly who is or was a director of Butterfly Ventures Ltd, based in the Bahamas, an offshore tax haven. In Lewisham, Modality Partnership Ltd profits from three practices – Jenner Health Centre in Forest Hill, Bellingham Green surgery and South Lewisham Group Practice.
- GP surgeries are closing: In 2018, in Greenwich, 45 practices were reduced to 32 by closures and mergers. Nationally nearly 500 surgeries have closed since 2013. Closures mean that people have to travel further to see their GP.
- GPs are under contract to go ‘Digital First’. This means that as many services as possible must be offered through ‘digital platforms’. In practice it has meant that non- face to face appointments have become the norm.
WE SAY!
- Train and employ enough doctors to bring Britain back up to European standards
- No de-skilling of doctors and nurses
- Face to face appointments with doctors and practice nurses as the norm
- No to privatisation, no to profiteering from public need
- And no to charging to see a GP