Politicians - what planet are they on (Warning - this is a rant!)
|Rant on|
Access to general practice is top of the agenda again (guess we should expect it with a general election next year). The Labour party is offering to fund 8,000 more GP's and we have since had a counter offer from the Conservatives with David Cameron offering access to seven day a week GP services by 2020.
But, and there is a very large but, training practices across Yorkshire are struggling to fill GP training slots. Last year only 75% of posts were filled in August 2014 and this will inevitably lead to a shortage of trained GPs in three years time when we would have expected them to have finished their training. The governments enthusiasm for GP seven day a week working comes from lessons learnt from the seven day a week pilot practices but locally they have not started operating. They were 12 month pilots so how they can say they have learnt lessons from them completely mystifies me, unless they meant that they had already decided what the lessons were going to be and are now telling everyone how successful they have been!
In addition practices locally still have the threat of a reduction in their incomes. Across Wakefield there is the threat to remove £3.8 million from practice budgets. This is equivalent to 38 full time GPs.
So, at a time when we are having difficulty recruiting GP's, GP practice budgets are being cut, political parties are offering additional GPs (where on earth are they going to come from) and extra hours (where are the staff going to come and where is the money to provide these services).
Honestly, what planet are politicians on because they are certainly not living anywhere near Normanton!
|Rant off|
And I promise a normal and considered blogs next week)
Access to general practice is top of the agenda again (guess we should expect it with a general election next year). The Labour party is offering to fund 8,000 more GP's and we have since had a counter offer from the Conservatives with David Cameron offering access to seven day a week GP services by 2020.
But, and there is a very large but, training practices across Yorkshire are struggling to fill GP training slots. Last year only 75% of posts were filled in August 2014 and this will inevitably lead to a shortage of trained GPs in three years time when we would have expected them to have finished their training. The governments enthusiasm for GP seven day a week working comes from lessons learnt from the seven day a week pilot practices but locally they have not started operating. They were 12 month pilots so how they can say they have learnt lessons from them completely mystifies me, unless they meant that they had already decided what the lessons were going to be and are now telling everyone how successful they have been!
In addition practices locally still have the threat of a reduction in their incomes. Across Wakefield there is the threat to remove £3.8 million from practice budgets. This is equivalent to 38 full time GPs.
So, at a time when we are having difficulty recruiting GP's, GP practice budgets are being cut, political parties are offering additional GPs (where on earth are they going to come from) and extra hours (where are the staff going to come and where is the money to provide these services).
Honestly, what planet are politicians on because they are certainly not living anywhere near Normanton!
|Rant off|
And I promise a normal and considered blogs next week)
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