IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR PATIENTS – GP Collective Action

Message from Broad Lane Surgery

We are writing to inform you of some changes in the operation of Broad Lane Surgery starting in the last week of September. These changes are in line with the latest guidelines of the British Medical Association (BMA) which will be followed by GP practices across the country. We have done all we can to make the changes as small as possible, but we believe they are essential to maintain safe working conditions for all patients, doctors and practice staff. We would like to explain the reasons behind the changes and then set out them out in detail.

Over the past decade, general practice across England has faced increasing pressure. It is a startling fact that now only 6% of the NHS budget is provided to GP surgeries which nevertheless deal with 90% of patient contacts. Since 2013, approximately  2,000 GPs have left the profession and hundreads of GP practices have closed. This is largely due to a 20% reduction in resources allocated to GP surgeries by the government, making it increasingly difficult to recruit new doctors and maintain the level of care we strive to provide. As workloads intensify, more GPs are choosing to work part-time or leave the profession entirely.

At Broad Lane Surgery, we have done everything we can to face these challenges to improve the quantity and quality of patient care. In the last four years, our patient list has grown by over 20% from 5,700 to 6,900.

In response:

Despite these efforts, the strain on our resources has reached a critical point, a situation, as you may have seen in the media, being felt by the vast majority of GP surgeries across England. As a profession we are concerned that despite making changes within our surgeries, and significantly  working beyond our contracted hours, it is becoming harder to ensure a safe service for our patients.

The result of all the above is that in July, GP surgeries nationally voted to support collective action, not as a strike, but as a way to send a clear message that general practice in its current form is unsustainable. The BMA has suggested that practices take steps to ensure safe working conditions, including limiting GPs to seeing no more than the BMA-recommended 25 patients per day. Currently we are running at around 30 patient appointments per doctor per day and we feel that this is unsustainable. When GPs regularly see more than 25 patients per day, this increases doctor burnout, impacts the quality of care and simply compounds the problem of doctor recruitment and retention.

This collective action, whether by GPs generally or by Broad Lane, is not designed to penalise patients. We see it as a necessary step to urge the government to direct resources to general practice, providing us with the workforce we need and to secure a new contract that will allow us to continue offering you the best possible care.

Therefore, starting from the last week of September, the following changes will apply.  As now, patients can ring for a same-day appointment from 08:30am. Appointments will be available from when the lines open at 08:30am to the last appointment of the day at 05:45pm. In future, once our appointments are filled in the morning, we will no longer be able to offer additional same-day appointments that day.  It will still be possible to book a smaller number of appointment on line, 24 and 48 hours in advance, there will be no change to that service.

Please be reassured that the net effect of the changes will amount to a small reduction of 4 appointments per day across the practice, resulting in approximately 20 fewer appointments each week in total. This represents less than a 5% change in our total weekly provision but is intended to allow our doctors to work more safely, reducing burnout and ensuring that patients are seen by focused doctors.

Patients may already have noticed that our reception staff ,when appropriate, indicate the range of health care providers available. This is one of the reasons why our reception staff ask the reason for your appointment- to help navigate you to appropriate care which may not always be the GP.  We have decided to enhance this provision so that patients can be reassured that help will be available.  Such alternatives indicated could be NHS 111, the Urgent Treatment Centre at Teddington Memorial Hospital , NHS Dental Services,  Accident & Emergency services and NHS England Pharmacy First – a relatively new service which can offer antibiotics for mild  urinary tract infections locally for patients between 16-65.

We hope to have your understanding and support during these challenging times. As indicated, please be reassured that we are not acting alone; all GP surgeries across England are facing the same pressure and will be taking some form of collective action. It is only by standing together that we can aim to make a strong case to the government for the changes needed to improve general practice for both patients, doctors and all practice staff.

Finally, we are very grateful to our patient participation group for their support. Please see their message to the patients of Broad Lane on the following page.

 

 

 

 

 

A message  from Broad Lane Patient Participation Group (PPG)

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Broad Lane Surgery Patient,

 

As the Broad Lane Surgery PPG, we understand the reasons why the GP surgeries across England have voted to take this action and are fully supportive of them working within the BMA recommended guidelines to ensure continued patient safety as well as safe working conditions for the Doctors and the surgery staff.

 

We would like to encourage all Broad Lane patients to support our surgery by taking the following action;

 

 

Thanking you in advance for taking the time to read and action this.

 

 

 

You can either print the letter below and send it to her at one of her offices;

 

Parliamentary Office  –          House of Commons

London

SW1A 0AA

 

Constituency Office –              15 Richmond Road

Twickenham

TW1 3AB

 

 

 

 

Or you can edit the template below accordingly and send via Email  munira.wilson.mp@parliament.uk

 

Dear Munira,

 

 

My name is …………………………………………………….. and I am a voter who lives in

 

your Constituency. My address is  ……………………………………………………………………..

 

I am writing to you about the critical situation GP surgeries across England are facing.

 

This is something that is very important to me and as the first line of defence for healthcare I am distraught that this is not already being discussed in Parliament.

 

Over the past decade, general practice across England has faced increasing pressure. It is a startling fact that now only 6% of the NHS budget is provided to GP surgeries which nevertheless deal with 90% of patient contacts. Since 2013, over 1,000 GPs have left the profession, and almost 2,000 GP practices have closed. This is largely due to a 20% reduction in resources allocated to GP surgeries by the government, making it increasingly difficult to recruit new doctors and maintain the level of care required for patient safety.

 

I am asking you to take the following steps to address my concerns: along with your colleagues in Parliament raise this issue with Sir Keir Starmer and his government and urge them to take immediate action to direct resources to general practice, providing them the workforce they need and to secure a new contract that will allow them to continue offering all patients the best possible care.

 

I do not require a direct response from you, but I do look forward to seeing you raise this issue in Parliament very soon.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

Signed :           ……………………………………………………….

 

Date :               …………………

 

 

For printing purpose use this link     Collective Action Final SaturdayAM_