Return of family doctors and appointments within 48 hours: How NHS can be so much better

Every morning, at 8am, Scots across the country are waiting on hold desperately trying to get a GP appointment. For all too many, it will be a call that ends in the words “there are no appointments left – try again tomorrow”.

But for all those who do eventually get an appointment, there are countless others who give up, or don’t even attempt a phone call in the first place, even though they feel unwell.

We will never know how many cancers could have been diagnosed earlier, how many infections could have been prevented and – crucially – how many A&E visits avoided if the 8am rush hadn’t put people off.

Under the SNP, the number of GPs has been reduced, they are chronically under-resourced, and primary care is crumbling. The strain on GP services means more and more people are turning to out-of-hours services and A&E.

Despite GPs facing huge workloads, locums who could help them cope can't find enough work (Picture: Anthony Devlin) | PA

Unemployed GPs

The number of patients waiting more than 12 hours at A&E is now 99 times higher than it was 14 years ago.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. I’ve written before about one of the reasons for the 8am rush – the spiralling ratio of GPs to patients, which means in theory that if everyone registered with a practice called up, each GP could be fielding 1,743 appointment requests.

Yet in Scotland today, we have the bizarre situation where GPs are sitting at home without jobs because of the SNP’s failure to create a proper workforce plan.

Another reason is the GP contract, negotiated by the SNP in 2018. While the intention was to modernise primary care, the contract has simply failed to deliver any long-term change.

It centralised the delivery of vaccinations, meaning that GPs could no longer offer immunisations to patients who turned up for other check-ups. After vaccination rates fell, the SNP government finally allowed Highlands GPs to start vaccinating again.

And while the contract introduced multi-disciplinary support teams to take the burden off GPs, it failed to create the appropriate management structures to deploy them efficiently.

Labour’s plan

That’s why Scottish Labour is pledging to renegotiate the GP contract to ensure it delivers for patients within the first 100 days of a Scottish Labour government at Holyrood. And what will that contract look like?

It will support GPs to invest in the technology needed to let patients book advance appointments, rather than having to call for on-the-day appointments. It will guarantee that patients are seen within 48 hours.

And it will pave the way for the return of the family doctor, with GPs rewarded for ensuring continuity of care.

As this winter’s paralysing flu outbreak illustrated, the SNP’s neglect of primary care has consequences for our hospitals and A&E departments. That’s why Scottish Labour will seek to reform and invest in primary care, working together with GPs to improve the health and wellbeing of the nation.

Our NHS needs a new direction and Scottish Labour is ready to deliver it.

Jackie Baillie is MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour’s deputy leader and her party’s spokesperson for health