A patient’s progress

I am relatively lucky in that I enjoy fairly good health and rarely have to use the NHS. In fact since moving to my current home over two and a half years ago I have yet to make a personal appointment at my GP.

But just like any other parent of a young child in the last couple of years I have had to try to book appointments at a far greater regularity than ever before.

This involves playing roulette when to book an on the day appointment, there is no way to know in advance that my little girl is going to be ill. At our surgery it is a case of ringing up at 8.30 am and trying to get an appointment and your success or failure is based on whether you can actually join the queue and wait on hold. Often demand is so high you can’t even do that.

If you can’t get an on the day appointment or you become ill or your health worsens after the golden time of 8.30 am then you are looking at attending a walk in centre during the day, phoning the 111 service to get advice and possibly an emergency appointment (which is 10 miles away and only accessible by car) or as a last resort and if you are very concerned about your health go to A&E, perhaps by ambulance.

This spiral of events is all too common and since beginning writing this piece I’ve spoken to other colleagues who have described exactly this chain of events.

In for a long wait?

If you go to A&E you are likely to be in for a long wait. On January 9, the health secretary Jeremy Hunt unilaterally announced that the target of all patients in A&E being seen within four hours, now only applied to urgent cases. The language was again clear in trying to dissuade people from attending A&E.

Speaking from experience you don’t know how urgent your child’s medical condition is until you receive a proper medical assessment.

As patients access deeper layers of the NHS, costs start to spiral and demand on the system grows. Ideally to preserve NHS resources patients need to be able to access the NHS at the most local level but I am sure that Unite members have had the similar experience that it is getting increasingly difficult to book an appointment, especially during the winter months when demand is greatest.

In December Dr Helen Stokes-Lampard the chair of the Royal College of GPs warned that patients might have to wait weeks to see a family doctor.

The government has recently undertaken an advertising campaign to persuade the elderly not to delay seeking treatment but instead of using the NHS, they are “encouraged” to consult a chemist.

The government’s long-term solution is to create a seven day NHS however that is not without major pitfalls. They are trying to do it on the cheap with NHS workers expected to be more flexible and work weekends for no increase in pay.

In a recent controversial statement Theresa May blamed GPs for not having longer opening hours for the wider problems affecting the NHS.

Stokes-Lampard has a stark warning that if the government pushes ahead with a seven day service there will be GPs open on a Sunday where there is little demand but they will then be closed on a week day.

When you or your loved one is ill or in pain and there are delays and difficulties in getting treatment, it is easy to get annoyed frustrated or angry. It needs to be remembered that the person you are dealing with is probably under intense pressure, is distressed that they can’t provide a better service and they may well be a Unite member.

Members on frontline

Unite represents doctors, receptionists, ambulance drivers and health visitors all of whom are very much on the frontline when it comes to dealing with patients.

Their views on the challenges facing the NHS demonstrate the challenges being faced on a daily basis in our health sector.

Unite’s David Wrigley, a GP in Carnforth, Lancashire and chair of Doctors in Unite, says, “It breaks GPs hearts not to see patients. When you hear that patients are waiting for two or three weeks it goes against all your training.”

He has been a GP for 15 years and has “never seen it his bad.”

Wrigley puts the blame fully at the door of the government, saying, “year on year there has been a reduction in resources for GPs.” The figures bear this out – 90 per cent of patients in the NHS are seen by GPs yet this frontline service only receives between 6 per cent – 7 per cent of the NHS budget.

Wrigley believes that the lack of resource is creating a vicious circle, experienced GPs are quitting and newly qualified doctors are choosing not to become GPs.

The British Medical Association has produced research showing that a third of GP practices have vacancies. GP surgeries are closing on a regular basis, there has been a steep increase in mental health problems and also a number of GPs have committed suicide.

And that is why Unite will always support the NHS, support our colleagues who work for it and fight to the very last to keep it.