Mail Weekly Column: 26 September 2021
A constituent - a nurse working in General Practice here in Furness - wrote to me this week with a very sombering message:
“The abuse our teams are facing is becoming more frequent… Nobody should have to go to work and be abused for trying to do our best in an impossible situation.”
Of course, she is absolutely right.
We use the term GP and often just think of doctors, but there are many people working in surgeries - from those on the phones, running pharmacies, on reception or in back offices, and, of course, practice nurses too. They are under incredible pressure, their workload is huge and many practices are short staffed. They were busy before the pandemic and they are flat out now.
The pressure on the NHS should not be shrugged off. Speaking to our local hospital trust, I find that sickness rates have increased in just the last week alone and are continuing to rise. Whilst COVID-19 related sickness is still having an impact, more and more key staff are going off with stress and anxiety, coughs and colds and gastrointestinal illnesses.
The vaccination programme is a massive success - the GP network was responsible for delivering a very significant portion of it. As one practice nurse put it to me though: “we used to clap for the NHS, now in [general] practice it feels more like a slap”.
While there is a very significant sum of money going to the NHS as a result of the Health and Social Care Levy, that is not going to immediately lift the pressure on the system, or on the staff working in it.
Looking at the data behind some of the headlines, GPs are seeing more people than ever before but patients are also reporting to me that they are sometimes struggling to get appointments. The reality is that there are often not enough appointments available in a day to meet demand.
To reverse that trend we need to look more at using new technology and relying on other parts of the healthcare firmament to assist, such as pharmacies (who also need more support, but that is a point for another column!).
Local doctors are working hard to triage and ensure that everyone has access to good and appropriate care. Online and telephone appointments can be quicker and more convenient for patients and clinical staff.
So while it may be frustrating to not get an appointment immediately, or to be asked more questions than normal when phoning up, this is necessary to ensure that GPs can continue to provide a robust service, including seeing patients who need a face-to-face appointment.
My last word on this is to thank GPs, practice nurses and their teams for their work. Right now they doing the day job, are tackling exceptional backlogs due to COVID, and they have served our communities through the pandemic by delivering the vaccine programme. Those are amazing achievements that we shouldn’t forget.
