SCOTLAND'S family doctors have called for radical NHS reforms being rolled out in England under controversial health secretary Jeremy Hunt to be replicated north of the border.
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Scotland hailed NHS England's new five-year blueprint for general practice as a "decisive" step forward and called on Scotland's political parties to adopt similar policies to secure the future of primary care.
The General Practice Forward View, published this week, outlines many measures the RCGP called on the SNP to commit to during the last Holyrood term. The organisation launched an unprecedented attack on Scottish ministers in January, warning that GPs were seen as "dispensable".
New initiatives under the plan, to be delivered thanks to £2.4 billion of extra cash annually, include new financial incentives designed to end a recruitment crisis, practice upgrades, actions to cut excessive workloads and an increase in primary care spending as a proportion of the total health budget, with English GPs to see a 14 per cent real terms funding increase.
Under the plan, practices will also open later on weeknights, patients will be asked to "self-manage" conditions online and there will be an increased role for pharmacists and nurses.
NHS England said it would spend more than 10 per cent of the health budget on general practice under the new regime by the end of the decade, with the RCGP complaining that despite increases in cash terms, its share of the total NHS budget in Scotland has dropped from 9.8 per cent to 7.4 per cent over the last decade leaving GPs struggling to cope with soaring demand and increasing numbers of elderly patients. The RCGP believes primary care should receive 11 per cent.
Dr Miles Mack, chair of RCGP Scotland, said: "England now has the security of knowing that its general practice service is safe and will remain. To give Scotland, birthplace of the NHS model, comparable security, we would need to see £270 million more invested in general practice in 2020/21 than there was in 2014/15. This is a defining election issue, right at the heart of Scottish life."
The SNP, which polls suggest are almost certain to form the Scottish Government after May 5, committed to enhance the role of nurses and pharmacists in primary care, increase training places and remove a unpopular payments system in its manifesto. However, the measures had been previously announced and many GPs do not believe they go far enough.
A spokesman for the SNP said the party has ensured record health spending and staffing levels, and highlighted an additional commitment to boost health spending by £500m above inflation over five years if re-elected.
He added: "We're also committed to increasing the proportion of the NHS budget being spent on primary care each year, and to increasing GPs numbers. To support this we're increasing GP training places from 300 to 400 per year."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel