{"id":1413,"date":"2025-08-07T12:24:37","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T11:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/gp-crisis-dauk-gp-committee-in-the-media\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:24:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T11:24:37","slug":"gp-crisis-dauk-gp-committee-in-the-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/gp-crisis-dauk-gp-committee-in-the-media\/","title":{"rendered":"GP crisis: DAUK GP committee in the media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DAUK\u2019s GP committee highlighted issues facing general practice in a series of media articles and interviews.\r\n\r\nDr Ellen Welch, Doctors\u2019 Association UK (DAUK) co-chair, contributed to a report in Pulse on new Government general practice figures<\/a>.\r\n\r\nGP teams in England delivered 7m more appointments in the past 12 months, according to Office for National Statistics figures. Patient satisfaction was also rising, the ONS said.\r\n\r\nDr Welch said: \u201cWe may be seeing more patients with improved access, but these figures may not fully capture the turnover in the system or the emergence of a two-tier workforce.\r\n\r\n\u201cMost of these appointments were delivered by non-GPs \u2013 so how many patients end up with multiple consultations instead of one with a familiar GP?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Media statement<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Our statement with the Medical Women\u2019s Federation (MWF)<\/a> on comments by Dr J Meiron Thomas was referenced in Pulse<\/a>.\r\n\r\nJaimie Kaffash, Pulse editor-in-chief, said it \u2018highlighted the real reasons behind problems with access, and the structural issues faced by women in medicine\u2019.\r\n\r\nDr Steve Taylor, DAUK GP spokesperson, also spoke to Pulse for a report on NHS England failing to update physician associate job descriptions<\/a> in line with Leng review recommendations.\r\n\r\nHe said: \u201cNHS England has created this problem with promotion of PAs in general practice, specifically seeing undifferentiated patients as part of their stipulation in ARRS.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe Leng review clearly backed both RCGP and BMA positions on the use of PAs in general practice. It was and remains unsafe for PAs to see undifferentiated patients with limited supervision.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Physician associates<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

He added: \u201cThe fact that NHS England has not backed their previous released statement to GPs by doing the same thing, shows how much a mess NHS England is making over this. It leaves GPs in a difficult position medico-legally.\u201d\r\n\r\nSpeaking to GP Online about the issue<\/a> of physician associate job descriptions, Dr Taylor described it as \u2018a mess\u2019.\r\n\r\nHe said it left GP practices ‘in a very difficult position medico-legally’ – and expressed sympathy for PAs themselves, who he said had been ‘sold a role which was not suitable for them by NHS leaders’.\r\n\r\nGP Online exclusively reported that more than half of the \u00a382m for additional roles reimbursement scheme (ARRS) GP jobs<\/a> in 2024\/25 went unclaimed.\r\n\r\nDr Taylor said the scheme should be expanded to include all GPs rather than only newly-qualified ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advice and guidance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

GP Online reported more than 99% of practices in England have signed up for the \u00a380m advice and guidance DES<\/a> launched this year.\r\n\r\nDr Taylor said it was \u2018a no-brainer\u2019 as practices were already carrying out the work without being paid.\r\n\r\nHe added: \u201cThe challenge is if it’s used as a stop-gap mechanism for hospital failures in terms of getting patients seen, [then] it does put more work on general practice.\u201d\r\n\r\nDr Taylor also contributed to a Pulse report that other NHS organisations were to take on GP budgets under a \u2018year of care\u2019 plans<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Primary care budgets<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

He said: \u201cGPs have experienced fixed budgets for patients for decades and have been unable to claim more or run at deficits.\r\n\r\n\u201cSecondary care has run deficits and often been bailed out. Trusting secondary care with any element of primary care budgets is a recipe for disaster.\r\n\r\n\u201cPatient funding for primary care and GP services needs to be higher and never lumped in with secondary care costs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

DAUK is run by frontline doctors for frontline doctors. Please support our work by joining DAUK<\/a> or donating to our GoFundMe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAUK\u2019s GP committee highlighted issues facing general practice in a series of media articles and interviews. Dr Ellen Welch, Doctors\u2019 Association UK (DAUK) co-chair, contributed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,59,58],"tags":[638,324,22,61,304,23,372],"class_list":["post-1413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dauk-news","category-general-practice","category-the-nhs","tag-arrs","tag-dr-ellen-welch","tag-dr-steve-taylor","tag-general-practice","tag-gp-committee","tag-gp-crisis","tag-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}