The Westminster health minister Sajid Javid is raiding other NHS budgets in order to fund GP practices' providing locums. This is a response to widespread complaints that people cannot be sure of gaining a prompt consultation. GP critics have responded that the need for face-to-face consultations is exaggerated and that in any case this subsidy to third-party providers is likely to accelerate a trend for GPs to leave the NHS in favour of free-lancing.
This week, First Minister Mark Drakeford opined that the traditional GP model was no longer appropriate.
One can draw political conclusions from the two stances. Undermining GPs in England would accelerate a flight to the private sector which suit the post-Thatcher generation of Tories. Socialists would favour polyclinics on the Soviet or DDR lines, providing first contact for all NHS services, totally under state control. (GP surgeries are more like small businesses, contracted to the NHS.)
I may be old-fashioned, but I believe there is still a place for personal contact with a named person over ones health, even if not always face-to-face, and for the GP as a respected person within a community in an era when trust in other leading citizens is in short supply. Rather than allowing GP practices to wither, it would be better to review what has happened to make them less attractive and eliminate it.
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