Rishi Sunak has announced plans to cut the time it takes to see a GP in England as the Prime Minister rushes to deliver on his promise to cut NHS waiting lists before voters head to the polls in general elections scheduled for the end of next year.
The measures will allow people with a variety of common conditions to obtain prescription drugs directly from a pharmacy, rather than having to see a family doctor first. These will include medicines to treat conditions such as earache or sore throat.
Sunakwho is under pressure after the Tories lost around 1,000 seats in local elections last week, has pledged to cut queues for treatment at the start of the year, one of five areas priority policies he said on Tuesday “get along”. with delivery.
Transforming primary care “is the next part of this government’s promise to reduce NHS waiting lists”, he added.
NHS England said the new arrangements, which would also allow women to obtain oral contraception directly from a pharmacist, would be in place by winter.
The changes will be backed by £645million to expand community pharmacy services and aim to ease pressure on surgeries by freeing up around 15million GP appointments over the next two years, the government has said .
Difficulty getting an appointment to see a family doctor is one of the most common complaints about the UK’s taxpayer-funded health service.
Dissatisfaction with the NHS is at an all time high and in the annual British Social Attitudes Survey published in March, more than two thirds of respondents identified long waiting times for an appointment you to the GP or hospital as one of the main reasons.
The Health Foundation, a research body, estimated last year that there was a shortage of around 4,200 full-time equivalent GPs, which is expected to more than double to almost 9,000 by the end of the decade. The government has previously admitted that the 2019 manifesto pledge to recruit an additional 6,000 GPs by 2025 will not be met.
In another step to reduce the demand on health practices, up to half a million people a year will be able to self-refer to services such as physiotherapy, hearing tests and podiatry without consulting at first a general practitioner. The government has also promised to end “the 8 a.m. rush for appointments” by investing in better phone technology.
Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, said GPs were “working incredibly hard to cope with unprecedented demand for appointments”. But with an aging population, “we know we need to further expand and transform the way we provide care to our local communities.”
Mark Lyonette, chief executive of the National Pharmacy Association, described the move as “a long overdue step” that could “get us back on track for a sustainable, clinically-focused future after years of decline.”
However, Professor Kamila Hawthorne, who chairs the Royal College of GPs, said that while all the initiatives were positive, “none is the magic bullet we desperately need to cope with the intense workload and the pressures of the workforce under which GPs and their teams work”.
Labor MP Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said millions of patients were waiting a month to see a GP ‘if they can get an appointment’ and said the government’s decision was “just tinkering around the edges”.
Beccy Baird, principal investigator at the King’s Fund, said not all pharmacies would be able to offer the additional clinical services and that it would be “really frustrating for patients to be moved from one pillar to another , to meet up with the general practitioner”.
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