Stand with your surgery: New resources to support GPs
Below is a direct excerpt from BMA Scotlands own blog. You can view the article directly here.
As GPs, we know the scale of the challenges our surgeries face.
Every day, we struggle to do the very best we can for each and every patient we care for.
But as demand has soared, and our resources have diminished, it has become harder and harder for general practice to cope with the expectations being put on it by not just the public but also politicians.
Working in our practices, we understand just why things are so challenging. As GPs you are all too aware that our slice of the overall NHS budget has been reducing substantially and now sits at a meagre 6.2% – down from a still insufficient 11% in 2008. That’s one of the main reasons why we lack the direct funding we need to employ all the GPs our patients desperately require. At the same time the patients we are seeing are sicker, often presenting with more complex problems, with more conditions and treatments to consider.
Yet, for a patient on the end of a phone, desperately trying and sometimes failing to get an appointment in the timescale they believe they should, the full picture and context of the daily pressures General Practices and GPs are facing isn’t apparent.
That is understandable, but it often leaves us GPs bearing the brunt of a patient’s fear and frustration, when the conditions we are working in are well beyond our control.
We are acutely aware of that at BMA Scotland. It is why we constantly seek to highlight the issues GPs face both in the media and with politicians, along with pushing for the direct investment we all know is the solution required.
But we want to do more, to help you and your patients. When you are struggling with workload every single day, there isn’t the time or resources to explain to your patients why they can struggle to get the service or access they want and need.
Your BMA Scotland GP committee is committed to supporting you with this challenge – and helping you demonstrate to patients exactly what the issues we face are.
That’s why we have produced and are sharing the following materials and a dedicated webpage you can use as you see fit. The posters can be used in waiting rooms, or as digital versions on your social media. You can print them yourselves if you can, or we will be sending them directly to every practice across Scotland.
The website contains associated messaging which again, should help you set out the position and challenges you face effectively.
Central to this is the call for everyone to ‘Stand with your Surgery’. That’s because surgeries are at the heart of communities. You rarely see anything galvanise local populations as much as the threat of losing their GP surgery. It’s something everyone values hugely.
We need patients and surgeries to stand together and advocate for General Practice to receive more funding, to be able to better serve their communities. We are convinced that in presenting a united front, there will be a positive impact in recognising the need to directly invest in our GP practices.
That investment will increase access and reduce the frustration and fear many of our patients are experiencing. Put simply, direct investment will help us do more for our patients and return the service GPs provide to something we are proud of, rather than one we have to apologise for. So please do use these materials wherever you can. We will be posting them out to surgeries over the coming days. Look out for them in the post and get in touch if they don’t reach you.
This is of course, just one of the range of issues we are working on, so we would also recommend you catch up on our latest blogs for more. From this point on we will be seriously ramping up our campaign for funding restoration for general practice. We have already placed Government on notice that GP funding needs restored or we will enter formal dispute: now is the time we must unite to demand the resourcing required to safeguard our profession.
Dr Iain Morrison, Chair BMA SGPC, Dr Chris Black, Deputy Chair BMA SGPC and Dr Al Miles, Deputy Chair BMA SGPC
