Your editorial summarises the terrible situation in general practice: declining numbers and declining passion for the role, with poorer outcomes for all (“A dearth of GPs is threatening the country’s health”).
We in Doctors in Unite, part of Unite, have recently published our charter to revitalise general practice. This requires a party in government committed to re-instating the NHS as a public service, ending commercialisation and fragmentation, and abandoning public sector cuts.
We want to see practices with a wide primary care team, covering about 10,000 patients, within neighbourhood health committees. Each neighbourhood, with doctors qualified in both primary care and public health, would work with community development workers empowering communities to collectively address local health issues.
We want improved working conditions for GPs, career progression and finite working days. We must ensure access proportionate to patient need, reversing the current position, with support for continuity of care. Let’s make the job of general practice attractive to patients and practices again – it would transform our NHS.
Brian Fisher, Doctors in Unite
London SE14
Link to letter here
Doctors in Unite 