Latest news with #BritishSocialAttitudes
BBC News
06-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
More than 1,000 GPs to get share of £102m to expand surgeries
Around £102m in new funding will be committed to expanding and modernising GP surgeries, the government than 1,000 surgeries will benefit from the cash boost to upgrade and create additional space for doctors to see more patients. It is the biggest public investment in facilities for five years, according to the Department for Health and Social Secretary Wes Streeting said: "These are simple fixes for our GP surgeries, but for too long they were left to ruin, allowing waiting lists to build and stopping doctors treating more patients."The projects are part of the government's broader plans to overhaul the health service - and are set to begin this summer. "It is only because of the necessary decisions we took in the Budget that we are able to invest in GP surgeries, start tackling the 08:00 scramble and deliver better services for patients," Streeting waiting times for GP appointments mean many people now try to book a same-day appointment. The "08:00 scramble" refers to the time many GP surgeries open their phone lines for on-the-day under 45% of all GP appointments in March this year took place on the same day they were booked, according to NHS British Social Attitudes survey, published last month, found that just 31% of people in the UK were satisfied with NHS GP services - compared to 68% in 2019Research by the Institute for Government, an independent think-tank, found that patient satisfaction with GPs had fallen significantly since the pandemic, driven by fewer in-person 80% of patients saw a GP in person in 2019. By last year, that had fallen to 66%, according to NHS Endland. Ruth Rankine, the primary care director at the NHS Confederation, said doctors would welcome the £102m boost to "deliver high quality care, closer to home, and fit for the 21st century"."If we are serious about shifting care from hospital to community, from sickness to prevention, and from analogue to digital, then sustained investment in primary and community estates, equipment and technology is vital," she is unclear which of the 6,252 GP surgeries in NHS England will benefit from the new month the government announced it would expand a scheme to help GPs provide care to patients without admitting them to hospital - backed by £80m in funding.
The Guardian
22-04-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Patient satisfaction with GP services in England has collapsed, research finds
Patients' satisfaction with GP services has collapsed in recent years as family doctors have switched to providing far fewer face-to-face appointments, new research has revealed. The proportion of patients seeing a GP in person has plummeted from more than four-fifths (80.7%) in 2019 to just under two-thirds (66.2%) last year. Telephone appointments have almost doubled over the same period from 13.4% to 25.4%. Those undertaken by video or online, including some in which patients fill in an online form but have no direct interaction with a GP, have risen almost eightfold from 0.6% to 4.6%. The Institute for Government (IFG) thinktank also found patients valued face-to-face appointments so highly that they regarded them as more important than their GP surgery offering more appointments overall by maximising the number provided remotely. They are more satisfied with practices that offer more in-person sessions, and less satisfied with those relying more on telephone and remote consultations, even though those free GPs up to see more patients. The dramatic shift in how family doctors interact with patients has coincided with a huge fall in public satisfaction with GP services. 'Patient satisfaction is higher in practices that deliver more of their appointments face to face,' according to an IFG report tracking the performance of England's 6,200 GP surgeries since 2019. Surgeries that offer the most remote appointments have experienced the biggest falls in satisfaction, the IFG analysis shows. Practices where in-person appointments remain common are also better at managing diseases such as asthma and diabetes, managing smoking and obesity, and providing check-ups to spot illness early, such as health screening and blood pressure checks, the thinktank found. Remote ways of providing care to patients that became commonplace as Covid-19 hit in 2020, which were widely thought at the time to be temporary, have become established ways of doing so at many GP surgeries, even though patients prefer traditional face-to-face appointments. Surveys have found that patients' satisfaction with GP services has fallen dramatically over recent years. Only 31% of people in Britain are satisfied with GP services, and just 23% with GP waiting times, the recent British Social Attitudes survey found. Silver Voices, a not-for-profit campaign group for over-60s, said GP care should not be reduced to 'intermittent telephone conversations' and that the lack of face-to-face appointments undermined Wes Streeting's repeated pledge to 'bring back the family doctor'. Dennis Reed, the group's director, said: 'Older patients are particularly affected by more remote consultations as we are more likely to be living with multiple conditions which require personal examination, rather than the need to just treat immediate symptoms. 'Many older patients are also uncomfortable about discussing intimate issues remotely, and the risks of misdiagnosis therefore increases.' Ministers should legislate to give patients a legal right to an in-person appointment, he said. GP leaders responded to the IFG's conclusions by stressing that surgeries were so overstretched that remote appointments were needed to help them keep up with the growing demand for care. Prof Kamila Hawthorne, the chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: 'We recognise that many patients want to see their GP face to face and the majority of GP appointments are carried out face to face – 64% in February. However, we also know that many patients appreciate the convenience of remote appointments, which can be delivered safely and securely with virtual technologies or over the phone. 'The unfortunate reality is that general practice today is totally overstretched. Patient need for GP care and services continues to outstrip resources following years of neglect and underfunding by successive governments. 'GPs and our teams are now delivering more appointments than ever before – 367m last year, more than a million per day – but with just a handful of more qualified GPs than in 2019.' Stuart Hoddinott, a senior researcher at the IFG and co-author of the Nuffield Foundation-funded report, said the relentless demand for care and shortage of GPs meant patients should not expect in-person appointments to return to pre-Covid levels. He said: 'The pandemic-era shift to providing many more appointments remotely can explain some – though not all – of the collapse in patient satisfaction. 'Although patients, especially those over 65, seem to prefer face-to-face appointments overall, the need to deliver ever more appointments to cope with demand in the system makes a return to pre-pandemic levels of face-to-face appointments unlikely.' The report, which was based on analysis of a range of official data about GP services, also found that: There are too few full-time GPs for the health secretary to fulfil his promise to 'bring back the family doctor', and that is unlikely to change in the years ahead. The government's policy of pushing GPs to offer more appointments may not be 'wise' because GPs will respond by providing more remotely – which patients dislike. GP appointment times will need to be extended from 10 to 15 minutes if Streeting is to deliver his pledge to shift the NHS from a treatment to much more of an illness prevention service. If GPs shift to being more preventive in their work, that might reduce the number of appointments they can offer, because patients will need more time to discuss their health. The Department of Health and Social Care insisted that patients who wanted an in-person consultation should get one. A spokesperson said: 'GP services are buckling after years of neglect but through our plan for change, we are working with GPs to fix the front door of the NHS and bring back the family doctor. By cutting red tape and investing more in our NHS, we have recruited more than 1,500 GPs to deliver more appointments. 'This government is also clear that patients should have access to health and care when they need it and people who prefer a face-to-face appointment should have one.'
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Supreme Court ruling on sex proves the peril of self-satisfied moral hubris in Parliament
Theresa May told the Cabinet 'in breathy vicars-daughter tones' that Penny Mordaunt 'had something very important to tell us.'Mordaunt, then Equalities Minister, then 'began a long disquisition about gender recognition…I didn't catch all the details, but it seemed fairly harrowing stuff, and at one point I heard Penny claim: 'This is the most important issue of our times'.' 'I mean: I could see that this was an issue of huge importance to some people (though surely not that many?) and I could see that it needed to be handled with tact and sensitivity. But 'the most important issue of our times'? Really?' The author was Boris Johnson, writing in Unleashed, his memoir – and showing the mix of wryness, common sense, cunning, human sympathy and proportion which, at his best, mark him out. He was sketching the beginning of an outlandish period in political history, which this week's judgement by the Supreme Court has surely brought to an end. Its unanimous decision that 'the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex' is nothing less than civilisational – though, at the same time, disconcerting. This is so not because of the ruling's content, but its context. Why was it necessary for For Women Scotland to go to court at all, claiming that sex-based protections in Scotland should only apply to people that are born female? Surely this matter ought to have been clarified by Government rather than through the exertions of a group of tenacious campaigners? The answer is that the Labour Government ducked its responsibility for clearing the matter up – by presenting legislation to clarify that sex in the Equality Act means biological sex. Keir Starmer has thus been, as so often, a lucky general, and Kemi Badenoch an unlucky one. The Supreme Court could simply have referred the matter to Parliament – declaring that the matter was for elected politicians to solve. Sir Keir, who once said that the 'vast majority' of women 'don't have a penis', would thus have been constrained, while grappling with the issue, by a party which believes that some do. Meanwhile, Badenoch, who has consistently argued that 'women are women and men are men: you cannot change your biological sex' would have relished a parliamentary struggle. The Court has denied her one. That's not to say that Labour should take all the blame and the Conservatives all the credit – far from it, as we've seen. Johnson, once Prime Minister, scrapped May's pledge to allow trans people to self-identify their gender. But this was a Conservative reversal of a Conservative commitment, driven less by conviction than circumstance. Johnson's nose had sniffed out a change in the political wind. The shift has been significant. The British Social Attitudes survey shows those describing themselves as 'not prejudiced' toward trans people dropped from 82 per cent in 2019 to 64 per cent in 2022 – and, since few people like to admit to prejudice, it is reasonable to ask whether the real figure is lower. Support for changing one's birth certificate has also fallen over the same period – from 53 per cent to 30 per cent, according to the BSA. Younger people, especially younger women, are more supportive of self-identification. And it is possible to believe that their view will prevail over time. But it is hard to follow the story of the past few years and think that the triumph of the trans campaigners is inevitable – in much the same way that Marxists still believe that communism will create the perfect society. Ilsa Bryson, Keira Bell, Maya Forstater: all are milestones on the journey to last week's judgement. Bryson, formerly known as Adam Graham, was placed in a female prison after being convicted of raping two women. The incident was instrumental in the stunning fall from grace of Nicola Sturgeon. Bell, who started puberty blockers when 17, launched the successful legal case against the Tavistock clinic that led to the Cass Review. Forstater, a gender critical feminist, failed to have a work contract renewed after expressing her opinions on gender on social media. She sued. At tribunal, she lost, and the judge said that her beliefs were 'not worthy of respect in a democratic society'. On appeal, she won, with a different judge ruling that her views are protected under the Equality Act. All of these examples are major incidences along the road to this week's Supreme Court ruling – or, if you prefer, the steady rainfall that has washed away the house that May wanted to build. Support for trans people in single sex spaces is among the lowest globally. Backing for trans competitors in women's sport has fallen. Above all, only two per cent of the public, according to YouGov, see trans issues as a top priority. If Johnson's account is right, Mordaunt's view was wrong. Shock-waves will fan out from this week's judgement, like the ripples that spread after a stone is thrown in a pond. Women's refuges, shelters, sports, hospital wards, Government guidance: all will be open to legal action. So Sir Keir is not completely out of the woods. Above all, Parliament has an opportunity to rise to the challenge it ducked when, in passing the Equality Act, it passed the parcel to the courts. Pro-trans campaigners and gender critical feminists are united in calling for reform. There is an opening for Badenoch and for Reform here. This week's judgement also raises a bigger question. We like to think of history as a march of progress, with rights for ethnic minorities, women and gay people as staging-posts on the journey. And so it is: childhood survival, life expectancy, food supply, income levels – all have risen worldwide since the end of the Second World War. But the human story sometimes takes the wrong turn – and the latest thing isn't always the right thing. In the 1950s, lobotomy was seen as a breakthrough treatment for mental illness. During the 1970s, the cause of the Paedophile Information Exchange was fashionable enough for it to be affiliated to the National Council for Civil Liberties. Before World War Two, eugenics commanded a political consensus. The cause withered in the wake of the Nazi extermination camps. When is the latest thing the wrong thing? We mock the weaknesses of previous generations and probe our idols for feet of clay. But what might future generations damn us for – as we condemn those who came before us for racism, sexism and the rest? Abortion on disability grounds, maybe? Or the use of ingredients tested on animals for cosmetics? Perhaps opting for the two environmental birds in the bush tomorrow, rather than the growth bird in the hand today? What will future attitudes be to gay rights, as the Muslim population grows? Who can tell? But the lesson of this week's judgement is that what seems to be the right thing today – as the trans cause did to May – may seem the wrong thing tomorrow. 'The only wisdom we can hope to acquire / Is the wisdom of humility,' wrote Eliot. 'Humility is endless.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The Supreme Court ruling on sex proves the peril of self-satisfied moral hubris in Parliament
Theresa May told the Cabinet 'in breathy vicars-daughter tones' that Penny Mordaunt 'had something very important to tell us.' Mordaunt, then Equalities Minister, then 'began a long disquisition about gender recognition…I didn't catch all the details, but it seemed fairly harrowing stuff, and at one point I heard Penny claim: 'This is the most important issue of our times'.' 'I mean: I could see that this was an issue of huge importance to some people (though surely not that many?) and I could see that it needed to be handled with tact and sensitivity. But 'the most important issue of our times'? Really?' The author was Boris Johnson, writing in Unleashed, his memoir – and showing the mix of wryness, common sense, cunning, human sympathy and proportion which, at his best, mark him out. He was sketching the beginning of an outlandish period in political history, which this week's judgement by the Supreme Court has surely brought to an end. Its unanimous decision that 'the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex' is nothing less than civilisational – though, at the same time, disconcerting. This is so not because of the ruling's content, but its context. Why was it necessary for For Women Scotland to go to court at all, claiming that sex-based protections in Scotland should only apply to people that are born female? Surely this matter ought to have been clarified by Government rather than through the exertions of a group of tenacious campaigners? The answer is that the Labour Government ducked its responsibility for clearing the matter up – by presenting legislation to clarify that sex in the Equality Act means biological sex. Keir Starmer has thus been, as so often, a lucky general, and Kemi Badenoch an unlucky one. The Supreme Court could simply have referred the matter to Parliament – declaring that the matter was for elected politicians to solve. Sir Keir, who once said that the 'vast majority' of women 'don't have a penis', would thus have been constrained, while grappling with the issue, by a party which believes that some do. Meanwhile, Badenoch, who has consistently argued that 'women are women and men are men: you cannot change your biological sex' would have relished a parliamentary struggle. The Court has denied her one. That's not to say that Labour should take all the blame and the Conservatives all the credit – far from it, as we've seen. Johnson, once Prime Minister, scrapped May's pledge to allow trans people to self-identify their gender. But this was a Conservative reversal of a Conservative commitment, driven less by conviction than circumstance. Johnson's nose had sniffed out a change in the political wind. The shift has been significant. The British Social Attitudes survey shows those describing themselves as 'not prejudiced' toward trans people dropped from 82 per cent in 2019 to 64 per cent in 2022 – and, since few people like to admit to prejudice, it is reasonable to ask whether the real figure is lower. Support for changing one's birth certificate has also fallen over the same period – from 53 per cent to 30 per cent, according to the BSA. Younger people, especially younger women, are more supportive of self-identification. And it is possible to believe that their view will prevail over time. But it is hard to follow the story of the past few years and think that the triumph of the trans campaigners is inevitable – in much the same way that Marxists still believe that communism will create the perfect society. Ilsa Bryson, Keira Bell, Maya Forstater: all are milestones on the journey to last week's judgement. Bryson, formerly known as Adam Graham, was placed in a female prison after being convicted of raping two women. The incident was instrumental in the stunning fall from grace of Nicola Sturgeon. Bell, who started puberty blockers when 17, launched the successful legal case against the Tavistock clinic that led to the Cass Review. Forstater, a gender critical feminist, failed to have a work contract renewed after expressing her opinions on gender on social media. She sued. At tribunal, she lost, and the judge said that her beliefs were 'not worthy of respect in a democratic society'. On appeal, she won, with a different judge ruling that her views are protected under the Equality Act. All of these examples are major incidences along the road to this week's Supreme Court ruling – or, if you prefer, the steady rainfall that has washed away the house that May wanted to build. Support for trans people in single sex spaces is among the lowest globally. Backing for trans competitors in women's sport has fallen. Above all, only two per cent of the public, according to YouGov, see trans issues as a top priority. If Johnson's account is right, Mordaunt's view was wrong. Shock-waves will fan out from this week's judgement, like the ripples that spread after a stone is thrown in a pond. Women's refuges, shelters, sports, hospital wards, Government guidance: all will be open to legal action. So Sir Keir is not completely out of the woods. Above all, Parliament has an opportunity to rise to the challenge it ducked when, in passing the Equality Act, it passed the parcel to the courts. Pro-trans campaigners and gender critical feminists are united in calling for reform. There is an opening for Badenoch and for Reform here. This week's judgement also raises a bigger question. We like to think of history as a march of progress, with rights for ethnic minorities, women and gay people as staging-posts on the journey. And so it is: childhood survival, life expectancy, food supply, income levels – all have risen worldwide since the end of the Second World War. But the human story sometimes takes the wrong turn – and the latest thing isn't always the right thing. In the 1950s, lobotomy was seen as a breakthrough treatment for mental illness. During the 1970s, the cause of the Paedophile Information Exchange was fashionable enough for it to be affiliated to the National Council for Civil Liberties. Before World War Two, eugenics commanded a political consensus. The cause withered in the wake of the Nazi extermination camps. When is the latest thing the wrong thing? We mock the weaknesses of previous generations and probe our idols for feet of clay. But what might future generations damn us for – as we condemn those who came before us for racism, sexism and the rest? Abortion on disability grounds, maybe? Or the use of ingredients tested on animals for cosmetics? Perhaps opting for the two environmental birds in the bush tomorrow, rather than the growth bird in the hand today? What will future attitudes be to gay rights, as the Muslim population grows? Who can tell? But the lesson of this week's judgement is that what seems to be the right thing today – as the trans cause did to May – may seem the wrong thing tomorrow. 'The only wisdom we can hope to acquire / Is the wisdom of humility,' wrote Eliot. 'Humility is endless.'
The Independent
08-04-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Resolving 8am GP scramble ‘will take time'
The 8am scramble for GP appointments will be 'wildly different' before the next general election, the Health Secretary has pledged. Wes Streeting said that he would be out of a job if people's experience of getting a GP appointment had not improved before July 2029. But he refused to commit to a closer timeline. Asked when the 8am scramble will end, Mr Streeting told LBC radio: 'It is going to take time. We've just actually done a deal with GPs with a new contract, the first time that's happened since the pandemic, and that will ensure that everyone in every part of the country can access services online, including appointment booking. So I think that will help. 'But, ultimately, this is going to be a case of step by step, year on year, seeing an improvement.' Pressed on whether the issue will be resolved by this time next year, Mr Streeting said: 'I can't guarantee that… obviously we'll go as fast as we can. 'But, as you know, I don't make promises unless I'm 100% sure I can keep them, so I wouldn't want to over-promise today and then under-deliver. I'd rather go the other way around.' He added: 'Let's certainly hope that, by the next general election, people feel that their experience of accessing general practice is wildly different and improved compared to when we came in. 'I wouldn't like to give you a deadline today and then fall short. So, as I say, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating and whether people feel that their experience is better by the next general election. 'Otherwise, if I'm not delivering what the Prime Minister expects (of) me, he will get rid of me long before the next general election because he is a hard taskmaster.' The minister was also quizzed on levels of satisfaction in the health service. The British Social Attitudes survey, which covers England, Scotland and Wales, found only a fifth of respondents (21%) are now satisfied with the NHS. Some 59% of adults say they are dissatisfied with the health service, up seven percentage points in a year and the highest level on record. Mr Streeting told Sky News: 'When NHS waiting lists fell five months on the trot, including peak winter pressures, I was keen to do two things: firstly, to tell the public that it is improving; but also to reassure people we're not complacent – there's still more than seven million people on NHS waiting lists, so there is still a mountain to climb. 'Similarly, today, I want to reassure people that we've not only delivered the 1,000 more GPS we promised by the end of March, we've gone even further – but also reassure people that we know there is much more to do to make sure that everyone can get a GP appointment when they need one.' Ministers announced on Tuesday that an extra 1,503 GPs have been recruited since October last year. Meanwhile Mr Streeting described plans for a 'community health service'. He told Times Radio that the scheme will see health workers go 'door to door' to help 'frequent flyers' of the health service. 'This pilot that we're seeing operate in London and in Cornwall, (and) will soon be trialled in other parts of the country, is showing some really promising results,' he said. 'By focusing in communities where we know there is high need, high deprivation, and the people who I would call the 'frequent flyers', the frequent users of NHS services, by getting to people earlier you end up reducing A&E attendance, you end up getting people the right care in the right place at the right time which is not only better for them as patients, but more cost effective for the taxpayer.' He said that it would not be 'cold calling', adding: 'It's focusing in on areas where there is evidence of high need and high deprivation. 'And yes, going door to door and talking to families, you find a huge amount of unmet need, people with a wide range of challenges which, if left unchecked and unattended, can then turn into health crises of one kind or another – whether that's mental health crisis or someone attending A&E because they didn't get care fast enough, which is worse for them and also more expensive for the taxpayer.' Mr Streeting was also asked about a campaign calling for a prostate cancer screening programme. He said: 'This is a really important campaign on a couple of fronts: firstly, awareness is really important that making sure that people do go and get checked is important if there are any worrying signs or symptoms that people go and get checked and don't feel awkward about talking about it. There shouldn't be a taboo around this, any more than there should be a taboo around issues like breast cancer or anything else, frankly. 'And secondly, there is a big campaign running at the moment for better cancer screening, and the National Screening Committee is looking very carefully at this moment. 'As soon as I've got anything to report back on that front, I'll be back.'
