Are GPs At Breaking Point? How New Reforms Are Affecting GP Practices

Due to financial cutbacks, considerable numbers of patients could be without a family doctor within the next few years, as many surgeries are faced with possible closure. It has become commonplace in some GP practices for patients to regularly have to wait for up to two weeks just to see a GP for a routine consultation.

Due to further cutbacks that were put into action in April, the British Medical Association warns that up to 100 GP practices could face closure in as little as a few years. Many practices are no longer able to provide the level of care that patients need, with some GPs seeing around 60 patients a day. When considering the calls that GPs must make and take, the paper work that they must complete as well as home visits to patients that are not capable of making their way to the surgery, this leaves GPs no longer than 10 minutes to spend with each patient.

Some GPs have faced such pressure from government cutbacks that they have been forced to make their boundaries smaller, leaving patients from outside these boundaries to find a new GP. However, for some patients, it is not a simple task to find another local practice that can take on new patients, as a neighbouring practice may be in a similar situation where their books are too full for them to be able to take on new patients.

For some people living in rural communities, their local GP surgery closing or shrinking its boundaries could leave them having to travel quite a distance to visit a doctor, and for some patients, this may not be possible.

With a growing population, and people generally living longer, patient demand is increasing and a lot of GPs are feeling considerable strain as their patient load and work load continues to increase. This has led to larger numbers of GPs deciding to retire early, or ever increasingly, working as locum doctors, whilst some young doctors decide against general practice altogether, preferring to work in hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

Locum GPs can benefit from flexibility in their schedules, as they can choose work placements that last anywhere between just a few days or a number of months. One of the key advantages that locum GPs can have is that they are able to take longer leaves of absence, allowing them to relax for longer periods of time, unlike fulltime GPs who cannot take long periods of annual leave at a time, and therefore, often can’t find enough time to fully unwind.

With pressure building on General Practices, it is likely that GPs will need to take leaves of absence to cope with the strains of their job. In this case, practices would be required to hire a locum GP in their place whilst they are away.

To find out more about locum healthcare, you can visit the Locum Select website.