General practice should be at the heart of every community - keeping patients safe and providing strong foundations for the rest of the NHS. But decades of underinvestment and government neglect have broken the entire system. General practice is in crisis and patient safety is at risk.
As a GP working in Gateshead, at a practice that has recently taken on hundreds of additional patients, I am living the experience of a general practice and NHS at breaking point. So, with the election fast approaching, I, like many of my colleagues up and down the country, am looking to how a Labour government would, in its own words, ‘get the NHS back on its feet'.
One of their answers – NHS digitalisation. Labour has talked a lot about this point in the past, and in this week's manifesto it confirms its ambition of giving more people a chance to participate through the NHS app, to improve patient experience and outcomes. As a GP, I welcome any effort to improve efficiency in general practice and relieve the immense pressure currently felt by the profession.
Labour must put equal effort into GP retention
However, digitalisation is not a silver bullet. Our health service is in crisis and without redressing the fundamental workforce and workload imbalance, technology cannot be efficiently and effectively deployed. Labour must put equal effort into GP retention, fair funding to general practice, and giving GPs freedom and autonomy to do our jobs. All of this can be done alongside digitalisation.
The good news is that Labour has stated its commitment to the NHS workforce. In Wes Streeting’s mission plan for the NHS, he says that to build a health service fit for the future, it needs to change so that we have 'the workforce of the future, with the technology they need'.
As GPs leave the profession in droves and practices close all over the UK, this pledge could not be more welcome. I am keen to optimise processes and remove bureaucracy that prevent me spending time with my patients.
But there is little point in improving the tech if we don’t have the workforce to power it. That’s why Labour must stick to its promise that workforce and technology will go hand in hand, specifically by delivering a policies that retain GPs and secure our future workforce.
Ensuring patient safety
Another key concern for me is that any move towards digitalisation keeps patient safety at its core. Increased patient data sharing is an example that brings this to life.
Allowing patients greater access to their health data could be a positive move in many cases. Health is holistic and is not confined to the GP surgery. Yet what politicians may not realise is that there are occasions where allowing patients complete access to data could put their safety at risk.
This may seem like an abstract concept, but GPs know their patients personally and are acutely aware of these risks. Let me use an example.
For a person who is a victim of domestic abuse, having access to full medical records via the NHS app is more dangerous than it is convenient. Vulnerable people often have their personal devices and emails controlled by third parties, meaning information shared confidentially in the GP surgery could easily make its way into the hands of an abuser. Often that information will refer to said abuser, putting the patient at even greater risk.
We GPs know our patients. We understand their personal circumstances and we care deeply about their safety. That is why we must be trusted to share or redact certain information from our patients.
Patients can be protected whilst embracing the benefits of a digitalising NHS, but policies must allow GPs the freedom and autonomy to care for their patients on a case-by-case basis. Health is personal and so too must be the sharing of health data.
NHS digitalisation is on the horizon and general practice has a lot to gain from embracing modern technology. But it can only truly work in conjunction with a workforce retention plan that secures GPs to power the tech, and with flexibility built into policies that allows GPs to protect the individual safety of each of our patients.
The Rebuild General Practice campaign, a grassroots group of GPs which I am a part of, is ready to work with politicians to ensure this. Because we all want the same thing – an efficient, modern and safe NHS.
- Dr Evans is a GP in Gateshead
