Responding to the Health and Social Care Committee report The future of general practice, Nuffield Trust Senior Fellow Dr Rebecca Rosen said:
“General Practice is the bedrock of the NHS but is in danger of failing. MPs are right to worry about the deep crisis it faces. We desperately need general practice to survive the immense pressure it’s under. But for far too long the yawning gap between patient demand and the number of GPs available to deliver appointments has been allowed to grow.
“The committee are spot on in highlighting the importance of improving continuity of care, where patients can see a GP that knows them and their history. Too often, policy is focused on the availability of appointments and neglects the equally vital role that relationship-based care provides. It’s encouraging to see the committee suggest that NHS England introduce a measure of continuity and a GP to lead on this within Primary Care Networks.
“But targets and measurements do not create more doctors, and the fundamental problem is a mismatch between supply and demand. Rather than focusing on dictating how and when patients are seen, the government should realise that success depends on whether it can do enough to keep GPs in post and bring new doctors into the NHS.
“The committee are right to identify that general practice is in crisis, as we and others have been saying for many years. The ball is now in the Government’s court to respond with more than arbitrary targets promises of staff they are not on course to deliver.”