Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK spokesperson, said GPs were carrying out more face-to-face appointments than before the pandemic PLUS an additional 20 to 25 per cent online, over the phone or by video.

And that was despite there being a UK-wide shortfall of between 7,000 and 8,00 GPs, he told listeners to the Nick Ferrari programme on LBC.

He said cuts to funding were creating ‘a perfect storm’ by making it harder to recruit and retain GPs, which increases the pressure on those already in practice 

Dr Taylor said: “Funding of primary care and community care – and I don’t mean just GPs but also district nurses, health visitors and all of those things – primary care is generally underfunded, which means we don’t have enough cash in the primary care set up to recruit and retain doctors.

“There are 2,000 fewer GPs now than there were in 2015, which is a huge drop given that in 2015 we knew then that we needed 5,000 more GPs.

“That’s 7,000 or 8,000 fewer than we need now.

“I’ve been a GP for 30 years and it was better 10 years ago when overall numbers of GPs were increasing.

“But if you keep cutting community care the job gets harder and harder and there’s a perfect storm then.”

Dr Taylor added: “Overall physical access to GPs has gone up considerably over the past 12 months.

“There were more people seen face to face last year than the year before, and that’s more than in 2019.

“In addition to that, there were 20 to 25 per cent more appointments given online, by telephone and via computer access. They are the extra appointments on top.

“I know it’s surprising, there will be 1.4m people having access to GP appointments today, and 70 per cent of those will be face to face.”

The interview also touched on some of the issues facing accident and emergency departments.

According to an analysis by the Liberal Democrats, a record 420,000 patients waited more than 12 hours to be admitted to hospital from A&E in 2023 – an average of 1,150 a day – up 20 per cent on the previous year.

Dr Taylor said: “It’s dreadful. I’ve been a patient and I’ve sat with friends in A&E and it’s an awful situation.

“The overall numbers of people attending A&E aren’t hugely up, so the problem is somewhere else, so it does appear to be that the A&E departments aren’t able to move people on.

“Last year, Rishi Sunak said he would try to get 5,000 more beds for this coming winter to cover the problems and, sadly, we’re into winter and have 1,000 fewer beds than we had last winter, which is appalling.”

The interview is available below to listen to again.

The situation has arisen at Sunderland Royal hospital because it has been running out of beds despite it having recently added an extra 50 to its normal stock of 970 beds to help it cope with winter pressures.

In a message sent to local GPs last Friday titled “significant surge within the trust”, NHS leaders in the city said: “There has been increased pressures on bed capacity over the past two to three days which is having a severe impact across the trust. Fifty more beds are being used, 40 boarding in different wards and 20 patients were stuck in ED [the emergency department] as no beds available, resulting in some patients having to sleep overnight in ED.

“There has been some cancellations of elective activity [operations] and extra consultants have been pulled into ED to help manage the demand. It would be very much appreciated if you could only refer patients to ED if all other possible solutions have been exhausted.”

The hospital is seeking to buy places in local care homes as another way of freeing up beds and ending the logjam in its A&E.

Those who slept overnight in the unit will have been patients whom doctors had decided to admit as medical emergencies but for whom hospital staff had not been able to find a bed.

Sunderland’s overcrowding is the latest example of how hospitals have been struggling to cope with demand this winter, especially with higher-than-usual levels of flu increasing the pressure on beds. The NHS in England has added about 1,000 beds to help relieve the strain but some hospitals have ended up full despite that.

One local GP said the hospital’s request to send patients to the A&E only if there was no alternative was “exasperating” and made family doctors feel like they were being “a nuisance” when they were already using alternatives to hospital care as often as possible.

In recent weeks the Guardian has documented other examples of how hospitals are struggling to cope this winter. Cornwall Royal hospital recently told doctors they should discharge patients even though they may come to harm as a result because it was so short of beds. The Doctors’ Association UK called the move “morally repugnant and against the very fibre of what doctors stand for” while the British Medical Association said it was “a dire indictment of the state our NHS has been allowed to creep into”.

North East health chiefs have urged patients to “use services wisely” as shock figures show A&E waiting times soared this winter.

Dr Rinesh Parmar, chair of The Doctors’ Association UK and an intensive care doctor, said: “These figures, the worst on record, will sadly not come as a surprise to front-line doctors, who are working themselves into the ground to keep patients safe this winter.

“Poor morale and spiralling workloads have contributed to a staffing crisis in emergency medicine with A&E doctors showing the highest level of burnout across all specialities.

“Emergency doctors and our nursing colleagues are doing their utmost under very trying circumstances and it is the Government who must be held to account for these latest performance figures – which is almost certainly a direct result of years of under-funding.”

BMA emergency medicine lead, Dr Simon Walsh, said: “How many wake-up calls does the Government need?

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/worrying-statistics-expose-record-waiting-17546694

NHS England figures release today show that A&E performance is at record low in England. In December, just 79.8% of patients were seen in the Emergency Department within 4 hours, down from 81.4% the month before. This comes following revelations last month that for the first time every major A&E department had failed to hit it’s four hour waiting target in England.

This comes as a GMC survey of 6400 ‘specialty’ doctors seen by DAUK and published this morning showed that up to 30% clinicians reported feeling burnt out to a ‘high’ or ‘very high’ degree.

Dr Rinesh Parmar, Chair of The Doctors’ Association UK and an intensive care doctor said:

“These figures, the worst on record, will sadly not come as a surprise to frontline doctors, who are working themselves into the ground to keep patients safe this winter. Poor morale and spiralling workloads have contributed to a staffing crisis in Emergency Medicine with A&E doctors showing the highest level of burnout across all specialities. We are therefore are struggling to retain the A&E doctors the NHS so desperately need. Emergency doctors and our nursing colleagues are doing their utmost under very trying circumstances and it is the government who must be held to account for these latest performance figures – which is almost certainly a direct result of years of under-funding.”

CONTACT

press@dauk.org

1. The Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) is a trade association for UK doctors. Run by frontline NHS doctors, DAUK campaigns for patients and the NHS as well as advocating for the medical profession. DAUK have been vocal on patient safety issues and have consistently campaigned for safe staffing levels.

2. A GMC survey of 6400 doctors revealed up to 30% of participants reported ‘high’ or ‘very high’ feeling of burn out. The survey was of doctors not in training or consultants, other wise specialty doctors, associate specialists, or locally employed doctors. Due to attrition of doctors training in Emergency Medicine, non-training grades such as those surveyed make up a significant proportion of doctors working in Emergency Departments. The initial findings of the survey can be found here: https://www.gmc-uk.org/education/standards-guidance-and-curricula/projects/survey-of-specialty-and-associate-specialist-and-locally-employed-doctors?utm_source=DAUK&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=SAS_LE_results