Dr Zahid Chauhan says the Government needs to urgently integrate primary and secondary care
Some ambulance trusts are being asked to divert category-two calls to GPs and pharmacists in a bid to make sure patients get the right treatment at the right place, at the right time.
Sounds sensible, doesn’t it? The conundrum is, who exactly is going to treat this influx of patients when we already have a dearth of family doctors?
Just to remind you all, the number of fully qualified GPs has fallen by 7% to 27,375 since 2016. At the same time, the number of registered patients has increased by four million.
This is just another sticking-plaster solution and another gaping hole put in the ever-growing schism between primary and secondary healthcare.
Patients should never be bounced around from one provider to another, and that provider should be sufficiently equipped to deal with them in a timely fashion. That requires decent communications and relationships.
In Greater Manchester, we have the Urgent Care Primary Alliance CIC, a partnership between out-of-hospital providers to deliver integrated urgent care. They have decades of experience and the expertise to take patient enquiries and deal with appointments. The Government should look at a model like this.
Decision-makers also need to stop kicking the NHS political football by inventing and re-inventing short-term headline-grabbing solutions. They need to take a holistic long-term approach to caring for the NHS and reducing health inequalities. So, instead of promoting a wedge between primary and secondary strands, they need to bring them together as well as integrate health and social care.
From prescribing longer courses of medication for patients before discharge from hospital, to ensuring every area has flexible policies and the equipment to heal patients, to consistent procedures where the likes of the homeless are always seen at surgeries regardless of a fixed address, to better communications and improved patient notetaking, the Government could lead a drive to better connect primary and secondary healthcare.
Such a move could save them billions in needless bureaucracy and time lost to sickness, and it would result in uniformed quality healthcare for all.
There are just too many discrepancies, divisions and dangerous inequalities. The public wants a high-quality national health and social care service for all, not continual 999 call pilots and passing the buck down the food chain in an effort to find a solution.
That is the emergency we really need to tackle.
Dr Zahid Chauhan OBE is a GP, campaigner for health equalities and creator of the Homeless Friendly charity in Oldham, Greater Manchester
