Meeting of the Parliament 15 September 2021 (Hybrid)
I absolutely welcome the intervention of the BMA on that point. It is the interruption in the flow of face-to-face consultations that is causing a backlog and perhaps resulting in the missing of clinical signs, which could lead to far more acute conditions. That is why the GP workforce is so keen to get back to working as normal. I recognise that people are being seen, but they have not been seen in non-emergency situations.
I am as cautious about Covid as any minister in the Government is, but I am deeply worried about the long-term and deep-seated problems that continue to exist in the NHS. The BMA has described GPs as being under huge and unrelenting pressure, and has said that the workforce has a real feeling of demoralisation. That is because of not just the pandemic but the Government’s long history of poor workforce planning. It is all well and good for the Government to promise the introduction of more GPs to alleviate the strain, but those GPs cannot be magicked out of thin air. It takes the best part of a decade to train a GP. The seeds of the workforce crisis were sown upstream by the Government a long time ago.
We all know that the Government likes to create the impression that all the problems are new, but the problems in primary care were well established before the pandemic started. Recognition from the health secretary of the long-term nature of the problems would not go amiss.
The Government must set a date for the return of face-to-face services for GP practices, but it must also seek to improve the state of the services that were offered pre-pandemic. Long waits and a high-stress work environment might be normal in a public sector that is stewarded by this Administration, but that does not mean that it is good enough.
Increasing the workforce is part of the answer, but reducing the downward pressure on GP surgeries is also key, particularly around mental health.
The Scottish Government needs to increase the number of trained GPs in Scotland and embed more nurses, dieticians, physiotherapists and, crucially, mental health practitioners with GPs so that people can get a wider range of diagnosis, treatment and follow-up care within their community. That is how to reduce the burden on current staff and, crucially, offer the level of care that everyone across Scotland deserves.
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