Collective action punishes patients, streeting to tell GPs

Collective action punishes patients, streeting to tell GPs

The Health Secretary is expected to call on GPs in England to end collective action in a speech on Friday, warning it will “just punish patients”.

Speaking at the Royal College of GPs conference in Liverpool, Wes Streeting will say he understands why doctors wanted to “kick in the boots of the previous government”.

But he will urge them not to “close their doors to patients” but instead “work with us to rebuild the NHS together”.

GPs voted for work-to-rule in a vote held by the British Medical Association (BMA) in August; 98.3% of the 8,500 GPS participants supported collective action.

Following the vote, the BMA recommended ten protocols for carrying out operations, including limiting the number of patients seen by a doctor each day to 25 and allowing people to stop work when not required to do so.

NHS England warned that the measure could not only hit GP services, but could also impact emergency room waiting times and delay referrals for treatments such as knee and hip replacements.

Streeting is also expected to announce plans to reduce paperwork for GPs to free up more hours for patient care as part of the so-called red tape challenge.

“I am determined to cut red tape and cut red tape so we can ease the burden on GPs,” he will say.

“Our reform agenda will deliver three major changes in healthcare to make the NHS fit for the future – from analogue to digital, from hospital to community and from disease to prevention.”

Officials will ask GPs, hospitals and integrated care boards (ICBs) what changes they would like to see and then pass the information on to doctors working in primary and secondary care.

This will then be passed on to NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard early next year.

Ms Pritchard said GPS and NHS staff were under “immense pressure”, adding that the NHS needed to be better at “sharing and implementing” processes to alleviate this.

At the Labor party conference last month, Streeting said he would not go back on his message that the NHS was “broken” after concerns were raised.

The Government had previously claimed that cancer was a “death sentence” due to NHS failings, while maternity services were “shaming” the nation.

Senior healthcare sources told the BBC that they feared the claims could deter patients from seeking help and cause lasting damage to staff morale.

His comments came after junior doctors in England agreed to an agreement to end strikes last month, ending one of the longest-running disputes in the history of the NHS, with 11 strikes resulting in 44 days of disruption since March 2023.