GPs from across Tayside and Fife gathered in Dundee last night for the latest in a series of roadshows ahead of a possible vote on industrial action.
BMA Scotland is in formal dispute with the Scottish Government and is calling for action to restore a funding gap of £290m to put general practice on a sustainable footing.
If this is not forthcoming, the BMA Scottish GPs committee will decide whether to ballot members on industrial action.
SGPC chair Iain Morrison explained nobody wanted to take industrial action but that they might be left with no choice. He said general practice had endured shocking disinvestment – in 2008, it received around 11 per cent of the Scottish health budget, compared with just 6.2 per cent in the current financial year.
He said funding had not kept pace with inflation and did not take account of growth in population (ie, more patients) or for increased demand.
Burnt out
The 2018 general medical services contract hadn’t been properly funded or supported, he said, and had resulted in a loss of autonomy for GP practices. GPs were victims of their own altruism and were burning out because they were trying to do too much with too little.
‘We have to accept limits to what we can do and we have to make practices safe and sustainable,’ he said. ‘We need to make the Scottish Government understand how incredibly frustrated we are.’
Dr Morrison said a recent BMA Scotland survey on GP wellbeing showed the pressure doctors were under. Almost one in two said they were struggling to cope and was having a negative effect on their physical and mental wellbeing.
Almost half said the future of their practice was precarious or unsustainable and four in 10 said their practice could not meet patient demand for access.
Dr Morrison stressed general practice was the financially efficient and had the potential to transform healthcare with the right amount of resource.
High demand
But he pointed to the position where there are doctors who are facing unemployment or under-employment because practices can’t afford to employ them, while those in post are buckling under demand. Nearly all those who responded to the survey said they would take on more GPs if the funding was there.
Dr Morrison said patients were angry because they couldn’t get appointments – but that they should be directing that at their local MSP rather than at GPs and their staff, who were trying their best under difficult circumstances.
He alluded to BMA Scotland’s Stand with your Surgery campaign, which includes posters explaining the funding gap and the need for more GPs. He wants to see a commitment to having a GP for every 1,000 people in Scotland – currently the figure is more like 1,735 per 1,000.
He also urged colleagues to implement BMA Safe Workload Guidance and Business Guidance for GPs in Scotland, saying they made a real difference.
Last night in Dundee, GPs were able to share their concerns and question the three SGPC negotiators – Dr Morrison, Al Miles and Chris Black – about the negotiations and future plans.
Funding gap
Topics included the need to ensure remote and rural general practice was supported, what to do about increasing workload and demand and the difficulty of providing a modern general practice in outdated and overcrowded premises with inadequate IT.
Last month, the Scottish Government announced an additional £15m of funding for general practice this year to ease recruitment and build capacity. While this was welcome, Dr Morrison said much more needed to be done to restore the £290m funding gap.
As well as the Dundee event, roadshows have also been held in Edinburgh, Inverness and Glasgow. A further event will be held in Aberdeen tonight (3 September) and a virtual event tomorrow (Thursday 4 September).