25 September 2015
Our vision for the future of General Practice
As a working GP, you will know that general practice is at a critical juncture as GP services struggle under sustained pressure from a decade of rising patient demand, underinvestment and staff shortages.
This situation cannot go on.
Today the BMA’s GP committee (GPC) has launched its vision for the future of our profession: Responsible, safe and sustainable: Towards a new future for general practice.
This important report is the culmination of a year’s work and builds on our largest ever survey of 15,560 GPs, which many of you answered , as well as feedback from patients and several LMC events across England, including input from sessional and newly qualified GPs.
Our recommendations are based on the experience of everyday GPs and how they want to work in the future. Our vision demands an end to the short-term headline grabbing of recent years and outlines a programme of reform for a sustainable, modern and flexible service that enables GPs to care for their patients. This includes:
-putting a properly resourced NHS general practice at the heart of the community with an
-expanded multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals, including
-community nurses and other practitioners, which interacts and collaborates better
-with the rest of the NHS
-increasing year-on-year funding for patient care so that general practice can keep
-pace with escalating demand
-a new national campaign designed in collaboration with patients, government and
-healthcare professionals to promote and support patients to effectively self-care
-and signpost to other services to lessen pressure on GP services
-creating a long-term infrastructure fund to invest in GP facilities in order to expand
-their capacity to treat patients
-better use of technology to improve patient care and lessen unnecessary workload,
-including phasing out of paper records
-making a career in general practice more attractive and accessible for medical
-graduates by reforming the training curriculum and making the career path for new GPs more flexible.
Most importantly, I want your views about the ideas we are proposing.
You can join the debate on twitter by using #NewFutureforGPs and share your opinions on BMA communities. What should the future of general practice look like? Are GP networks/federations the way forward for your practice?
Our vision offers the government, NHS England and commissioners a clear framework for investment. It will hold politicians to account to deliver on their pledge to resource general practice properly. It lays out a new, bold future for general practice; where GPs can do their jobs providing safe, quality care to patients, and a career that will appeal to a new generation of doctors, in a manner that will be rewarding to existing GPs. It is incumbent upon government to create this renaissance in general practice, since a failure to do so would be a dereliction of its duty of care for the nation's health.
With best wishes,
Chaand Nagpaul
BMA GPC Committee Chair