Patients lost confidence in general practice during the pandemic due to the then Government and NHS England ‘appearing to blame GPs’ for access issues, the BMA has told the Covid inquiry.
BMA council chair Professor Phil Banfield also said that GPs ‘effectively took over’ the care of patients waiting for hospital care during the crisis.
As part of the inquiry’s third ‘module’, which is examining the impact of the Covid pandemic on healthcare systems, Professor Banfield was asked specifically about the impact on GP practices and their capacity to deal with the shift to remote consultations.
When pressed on the ‘frustration’ and ‘loss of confidence’ among patients over GP access issues, Professor Banfield said that ‘a lot’ of it was ‘driven’ by the Department of Health and Social Care under the Tory Government and by NHS England.
He also stressed that there is ‘no evidence at all’ that GPs ‘stopped seeing patients face-to-face’ throughout the pandemic, with around half of appointments taking place this way.
He said: ‘I think a lot of the loss of confidence was driven by the Department of Health and NHS England appearing to blame GPs for the lack of contact, and I think that got picked up in the media. I would not blame GPs for a lack of ability to contact.
‘We know that general practice is under-resourced for the work that it has been asked to do.’
In his recommendations for future pandemics, he told the inquiry that ‘significant investment’ in GP infrastructure and GP estates ‘would help enormously’.
He said that disruption to elective care in hospitals during the pandemic had a ‘knock-on effect’ for GPs because they ‘effectively took over’ the care of people on secondary care waiting lists.
He said: ‘Of course, if you stop elective care and you are not then able to provide care to patients that have been under you for some time, if you are stopped from operating, then the stress and distress that that causes is huge.
‘And of course that then has a knock-on effect to our colleagues in general practice, because they effectively took over the care of people on waiting lists that secondary care had effectively stopped working on.’
On the sudden shift to remote consultations, Professor Banfield said that ‘initially’ there was not enough capacity in general practice, but the subsequent ‘significant investment’ in IT was ‘one of the successes of the pandemic’.
Pulse has approached NHS England for comment.
A Pulse investigation into the harmful messages spread by the media during the pandemic found at least 164 articles in 2020 relating to access to general practice, with almost half suggesting practices were shut or providing poor access to appointments, claiming GPs were ‘refusing’ to work, or that they should be ‘back at work’.
Last month, the inquiry heard from experts who said that GPs were left to fend for themselves during Covid due to a lack of pandemic preparedness focusing primary care. One academic said that in March 2020, GPs were ‘flying by the seat of their pants’.
It has also heard that the evidence that FFP3 masks were more protective for doctors than surgical masks is ‘weak’.
The inquiry’s report into UK pandemic preparedness – which formed the first module – was published in July and found that significant failings meant Covid caused more deaths and long-lasting economic damage than it should have.
