First of all, the NHS is in debt, and this debt did not seem to have been there in 2010. Agency working is now being blamed for it, but the causes of people working for agencies are not being looked at. If you can have a better work-life working for an agency and can earn more, well why would you hold down a regular job? But the issue is a lack of pay rises in the NHS and market forces have resulted in those who want to be paid more, leaving to be paid more. Others have argued that the NHS has been underfunded and while this may have been the case before 2010, it has been more apparent since then.
The government want to change the way the NHS works from a five day service, to a seven day service. While this is an admirable aim, this has to be funded. And there are issues with staffing in many areas of the NHS, notably with GP's. There are not enough being trained as not enough doctors want to become General Practitioners and too many are leaving the NHS due to workload issues. (This is an issue with people in the NHS who are not in General Practice as well.)
What was very interesting was the comments of Catherine Davies executive director of co-operation and competition of Monitor, the NHS regulatory body who is reported as suggesting that patients could force GP surgeries to improve by switching to those whose services better suited their needs.
Well, let us look at that in Colchester. There are many GP surgeries present in North East Essex, and amongst them is the North Colchester health centre. It has good reviews and is open seven days a week for registered patients, from seven in the morning until ten at night and it has the largest practice area of a surgery in Colchester. But, despite having these opening hours, it does not have as many patients as other surgeries close to it with hours that reflect the five day NHS system that the government wants to move away from. Basically, if the people of Colchester wanted a seven day service enough, they would be voting with their feet and would be registering there rather than at other nearby surgeries.
It will be interesting to see if the efficiency savings are seen as cuts and it will be interesting to see how the government will address the issue of GP recruitment and retention. Basically, in 2015 there were four times as many unfilled GP posts as there were in 2010, one in ten posts for GP partnership being unfilled. That figure has to improve of the health of the nation will suffer.
