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Ministers must get real over NHS crisis, says doctors' union head Doctors 'having to apologise 20 times a day' for politicians’ broken promises
(35 minutes later)
The government’s pledges to expand NHS services have “barely the detail to fill a Post-it note”, the head of the doctors’ union has said. Frontline medics are having to apologise to NHS patients 20 times a day because ministers’ promises to fix the health service are so woefully inadequate, the leader of Britain’s doctors has claimed.
Dr Mark Porter called on ministers to “get real” as he described the government as being run from “from cloud nine rather than Number 10”. In a searing attack on the government’s NHS plans, Dr Mark Porter warned that politicians were “living a lie” because of the gulf between their ambition to turn it into a seven-day service and the reality of too few doctors, hospitals and GP surgeries under pressure and budget cuts.
Porter, the British Medical Association’s (BMA) council chair, was speaking as he made the keynote speech at its annual representative meeting in Liverpool, where he said recent promises regarding a “new deal for GPs” are nothing more than “old, repackaged ideas distracting from the central issues”. Porter, the chair of council of the British Medical Association, used his keynote address to the doctors’ union’s annual conference in Liverpool to highlight what one hospital medic had recently told its online discussion forum: “The most stressful thing is having to say ‘sorry’ 20 times a day for something that isn’t my fault.
The crisis currently facing the NHS is real, he said, “but their solutions show little grasp of reality”. ‘“Your appointment has been delayed? Sorry. Your operation has been cancelled? Sorry. Every day, I see my patients’ frustration with the health service and I am having to apologise’,” Porter relayed.
He told delegates that during the general election campaign and since the Tories were elected “we’ve been promised a massive expansion of NHS services”. But he said little detail has been given about how this will actually be carried out. “Why are we having to say sorry for politicians’ promises? Long after they’re made, long after they’re broken, long after they’re forgotten by those who made them, we’re having to say sorry; sorry for a reality the government won’t accept,” added Porter.
Related: Jeremy Hunt denies coalition created shortage of GPsRelated: Jeremy Hunt denies coalition created shortage of GPs
He also told delegates that measures outlined on Friday by the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, would not solve the problem of a mass shortage of GPs at the same time as the Tories strive to make the NHS a truly seven-days-a-week service. He also quoted the same doctor’s belief that “we’re living a lie. I want to tell [my patients] there are two health services. The one that politicians say they’ll provide, and the one they actually do.”
“They talk about GPs doing even more, when thousands already work in out-of-hours services, propping up the NHS,” he said. Doctors are increasingly ending up burnt-out because they are so overworked trying to keep up with rising demand for care, he said.
Referring to how the government has promised 5,000 new GPs by 2020, he asked: “How will these new GPs be ready to start work in five years’ time when it takes 10 years to train a GP?” “It’s harming some of the doctors here today. It’s harming our friends, our colleagues and our patients. Seventy-one per cent of doctors across the UK in a survey we publish today have suffered, are suffering, or feel at risk from, burnout.”
“How are they even going to recruit more GP trainees when hundreds of existing training posts are still unfilled?” More than 15,000 medics since 2011 have assessed their risk of burnout via the BMA’s online Doctors for Doctors service, “with the vast majority finding themselves at high or very high risk. It’s a terrible burden for those it affects and … staff burnout puts at risk the very ability of the NHS to meet its many challenges.”
“When will they provide substance over rhetoric and recycled ideas, to focus on the detail of how they will support GPs already burnt-out from overwork, in a service where more than 10,000 GPs are predicted to leave in the next five years?” In a series of putdowns of promises made by David Cameron and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, Porter ridiculed their desire to see the NHS become “a health service open all hours, staffed by a phantom army of new recruits. A pledge to expand services, with barely the detail to fill a Post-it note”.
“We have a government run from cloud nine rather than Number 10. The crisis is real, but their solutions show little grasp of reality.”
Cameron and Hunt’s pledge to make the NHS the world’s first truly 24/7 health system by 2020 involved “the pursuit of easy headlines” and failed to spell out how it might be achieved and paid for. Similarly ministers were kidding people by promising to recruit 5,000 more GPs during this parliament, Porter said.
“How will these new GPs be ready to start work in five years’ time when it takes 10 years to train a GP? They don’t say. How are they even going to recruit more GP trainees when hundreds of existing training posts are still unfilled? They don’t say.”
NHS England’s need to find £22bn a year of efficiency savings by 2020 would end up involving cuts to services and the earnings of its 1.3 million staff rather than smarter ways of working, he predicted.
Quality of care is suffering in hospitals because they are being paid less and less every year for treating patients, notably A&E units, which are being fined if some patients who have recently been treated come back within 30 days.
“Fining emergency departments for having too many patients – well, it’s like fining the Met Office for a rainy summer,” Porter said to the 500 delegates. The BMA represents 154,000 of the UK’s 234,000 working doctors.
He castigated all political parties for their NHS policies. He said: “As one election passes, and with three more soon to hit us, they’ll all tell us how much they love the NHS. Well, thanks for that, but what patients and their families need, what those of us working in the NHS need is honesty, respect and a sense of reality.”
Ministers had to give the NHS in England more than their promised £8bn extra funding by 2020, he said.
“Our health service is under such stress [because of] the gulf between the resources it allocates to health and what our European neighbours do. We spend a lower share of our national income on health than France and Germany but also Spain and Portugal. And this share is falling.”
As a result the NHS has fewer doctors per head of population than the Czech Republic, Estonia or Hungary, Porter added. “In a league table of healthcare resources such as staff, beds and medical equipment, we finished 28th out of 30 [a recent report found]”.
The Department of Health rejected Porter’s claims, accused the BMA of being out of touch with patients and advised him to “tone down this rhetoric”.
‘The BMA is out of touch with what patients want. People are sick of struggling to get GP appointments that suit their working patterns or family life. It’s a shame that Mark Porter doesn’t acknowledge that thousands of innovative doctors have already embraced our shared vision of seven day access to primary care,” a spokeswoman said.
“On Friday the health secretary clearly set out how we will deliver our commitment of 5,000 more GPs over the next five years. And we’re giving the £8bn needed to deliver the NHS’s own plan for the future – this plan sees more investment in primary care so this is the biggest opportunity for new investment in general practice in a generation.
“The BMA should tone down this rhetoric and help us encourage more trainee doctors to join general practice. Clinicians and senior leaders across the NHS support the principle of seven day working and it is a real shame that the BMA is reluctant to move with the times,” she added.