General Practice Good Year / Bad Year

And so we see the end of another year. Goodbye 2023. I hope it has been a good year for you all but I suspect, as is always the case with life and general practice, you’ve taken the rough with the smooth. For every good there must be a bad as the universe attempts to maintain homeostasis – Motsi Mabuse / Craig Revel Horwood, Mr Brownlow / Bill Sikes, mince pies / sprouts. So, grab a hot chocolate and let’s take look at the year…

Good year… for practice vacancies, which have been reported as half compared to last year. It’s not entirely clear if it’s because of the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, that practices have no space to put new staff or if they’re simply broke.

Bad year… for GPs looking for work…

Good year… for patient access. To help beat the “8am rush” NHS England are introducing care navigators (these used to be called receptionists), fancy phones, and two-way chat on the NHS app (who hasn’t wanted a WhatsApp group called “All My Patients”), but best of all pharmacies “easing the burden” on “hard-working GPs” by seeing all the easy stuff.

Bad year… for patient access. Could there be a link between record numbers of general practice consultations and the longest ever secondary care waiting lists? If only they asked us and could have given them some advice & guidance…

Good year… for diabetes meds with the news that between SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP1 agonists they cure absolutely everything.

Bad year… for people with diabetes trying to get hold of the meds to actually treat their diabetes.

Good year… for health secretary turnover – against the odds, down from 4 in 2022 to only 2 in 2023. Steve Barclay managed to hold on for 16 months, a record in recent times, to be replaced by the Right Honorable Victoria Atkins. Nobody noticed.

Bad year… for anyone becoming health secretary as “turning around the NHS” has been suggested as the only thing that could save the government at the next election. Good luck with that.

Good year… for the future of general practice! A GP Recovery Plan and an NHS workforce plan published early this year promise more GP trainees, more nurses, more allied health professionals than ever before.

Bad news… it’s going to take 10 years but, hey, we can be patient and we’re not going anywhere. 

Thank you for joining us at NB Medical Education in 2023, I look forward to seeing you all next year.

Merry Christmas!