On Monday, I visited the Abbey Medical Centre in London, where Dr Ellie Cannon and her colleagues provide a personal service with continuity of care. It’s an example of the best of the NHS, which I intend to take to the rest of the NHS.
But even here, Dr Ellie told me that the practice is under pressure and that means longer waits. That’s the case for millions of patients in practices across the NHS today. I also heard harrowing accounts of the impact of poor housing, damp, hunger and malnutrition on service pressures and patient outcomes.
After years of neglect of primary care, GPs are receiving a record-low proportion of NHS resources. It’s forced some practices to shut up shop and others struggling to cope. I’m determined to reverse that decline, so the proportion of resources going into primary care increases over time.
We’ve got to make sure patients can get through the front door of the NHS, if they’re going to receive earlier diagnosis, faster treatment and better community care across the NHS.
Fixing the crisis in general practice
And fixing the crisis in general practice is also mission-critical to securing the long-term sustainability of the NHS. If patients can’t get a GP appointment, they often end up in A&E, which is not only worse for the patient, but far more expensive for the NHS to provide.
The good news is that this government is going to be honest about these challenges, and serious about solving them.
Our plan to restore general practice will require both investment and reform.
We will train thousands more GPs, and cut the red tape that ties up their time so they can spend more time with patients.
We will bring back the family doctor, so patients can see the same doctor at each appointment. There is a happy alignment on the family doctor relationship – it’s what doctors want, patients want, and what all the evidence says is best for patient care. So we will introduce a new incentive for GPs to provide it.
And we will trial new neighbourhood health centres, to bring community health services together under one roof.
Creating a neighbourhood health service
These are the first steps we’ll take to turn the national health service into more of a neighbourhood health service.
We’ll also attack the social determinants of ill health, because this is a government that believes that prevention is better than cure.
I chose to make my first visit as health secretary to a GP practice deliberately because I wanted to send a signal. When we said before the election that we need to shift the focus of the NHS out of hospitals and into the community, we meant it. I want young doctors to choose a career in general practice because that’s where the action is going to be. And for those GPs considering their future in the NHS, I want them to know that the cavalry is coming.
It will take time. But if we get this right, then together, we can be the generation that took the NHS from the worst crisis in its history, to getting it back on its feet and making it fit for the future.
