Latest news with #generalpractice
RNZ News
7 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
New 24-7 health service could 'dismantle' general practice, doctor says
General practice has become less attractive as a speciality with the shrinking level of capitation funding and money paid to practices for each enrolled patient. Photo: 123rf The government's plans for a new 24-7 Telehealth service will end up delivering "hit and run" medicine and substandard care for patients, warns a leading GP. Health NZ has confirmed the service - due to go live from as early as next month - will involve multiple providers and a shared digital health record. The Digital Health Association chair said the service would making it easier for patients to access a doctor and help to avoid "clogging up the hospital system". However, the chair of general practitioners Aotearoa Dr Buzz Burrell told Nine to Noon it would inevitably lead to "further fragmentation of good old general practice". "And if we fragment and dismantle general practice, we're going backwards, not forwards." Dr Burrell said to his knowledge, no GP organisations had been consulted over the design of the new Telehealth platform, which was concerning. "Unfortunately what it's going to look like is a patient is going to phone a doctor, a nurse, a paramedic, who is not their doctor or nurse or health practitioner. "As a result that continuity will be fractured, it will be hit and run medicine, and it's not fixing the problem." The underlying problem was the acute shortage of GPs in New Zealand, which needed another 500 to 1000 family doctors to be on par with Australia, he said. "The solution is not funding private companies to make money out of patients phoning them up instead of their doctors - it's getting more doctors on the front-line." Research had shown that patients who had the same GP for five years, lived four years longer on average, and had 30 percent fewer referrals to secondary services, Burrell said. "I recall very well in deed having one Telehealth consult during COVID with a patient I knew well, and I said 'Gosh, I have to see you next week', and I did. "What they had called me about was one problem, but what I saw was a pale person who had lost weight. And to cut a long story short he had his bowel cancer resected three months later. "That would have been completely missed had he been seen by one doctor who he'd never seen before and would never see again. That's hit and run medicine." General practice had become less attractive as a speciality with the shrinking level of capitation funding, the money paid to practices for each enrolled patient, with up to 40 percent of practices struggling to stay financially viable. Digital healthcare providers said however the Telehealth service should bring more equitable access to GPs across the country. The Digital Health Association chair Tony Wai told the Nine to Noon many GPs offered online appointments but not 24-hour coverage. "It will hopefully pick up a number of the unenrolled who don't have a current GP and we know a number of those individuals have been winding up in ED across the country, and that's clogging up the hospital system. "Trying to get immediate access to a doctor is going to be crucial upfront, there will be a number of people using it who will be in major distress in that point of time and getting them immediate access is much easier." Wai said it would take less time to get access to a doctor and reduce the overall wait times. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
The Guardian
09-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Extra funding for primary care is welcome, but isn't enough
As a GP, while I warmly welcome any injection of funding into primary care for all the reasons Wes Streeting has mentioned (quality of healthcare delivery, patient experience, earlier intervention reducing pressure on strained and more expensive hospital services), I question whether his recent investments will actually achieve this (Wes Streeting: I will defend the tax rises funding 8.3m GP appointments, 6 May). There is more money going into core general practice this year. But GPs are also employers, and the vast majority of their expenses are on staff. They are not exempt from national insurance contribution rises, and in fact the recent increase in funding will just about cover the NIC increase – this is unfortunately a case of the government giving with one hand and taking with the other. Improved premises are absolutely essential, but they come with increased service charges for practices. These are not paid centrally, but out of the same budget that pays staff salaries and that ultimately provides appointments. The result is that shiny new buildings mean less money to provide appointments for patients rather than more. If we really want to increase the number of appointments, we need a really significant injection of money into frontline general practice to cover these hidden increases in expenses. Funding has fallen so much over the last 10 years, but a big increase is what is required if we are to create a health service that functions well and efficiently. GPs desperately want to do more and see more patients (this is why we trained for all those years), but our hands are tied if we don't have sufficient funds to provide these and address supplied Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The Independent
06-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
‘The best is still to come' – Wes Streeting promises sweeping NHS improvements
Change in the NHS 'has begun' and 'the best is still to come', the Health Secretary has said. Wes Streeting said that fixing the service will be 'a long road but this Government is putting in the work'. It comes as ministers pledged £102 million to enable refurbishment or expansion in 1,000 GP surgeries across England. But leading doctors said the money would 'barely pay for a handful of individual new surgeries'. The first GP refurbishment or expansion projects are expected to begin in the summer and form part of the Government's wider plans to improve the NHS. Mr Streeting told Sky News he expects to be 'judged on results' and pointed to additional appointments created in hospitals and the reduction in the NHS waiting list. 'I want to reassure people that change has begun. The best is still to come,' he added. Officials estimate that the new investment for GP surgeries will help to generate up to eight million more GP appointments. 'Over the course of the next year or two, I would hope to see a significant increase in those GP appointments,' Mr Streeting told Sky News, though he accepted that the eight million figure is an 'estimate'. He told GB News that the new funding will 'start moving general practice in the right direction'. 'If you are one of those people that will be on the phone at eight o'clock this morning after the bank holiday, screaming down the phone trying to get through with frustration – all of these things we are doing (will) start moving general practice in the right direction.' And he told LBC Radio: 'It's been welcomed by GPs. I know that there are also people in general practice saying: 'Oh, yeah, but we need even more than that' – I totally get that but we've had more than a decade of capital under-investment in the NHS. I'm not going to get rid of all of that in a year.' Commenting on the announcement, Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chairwoman of the British Medical Association's General Practice Committee for England, said: 'All new funding is welcome in the current parlous situation many GPs find themselves in, but the scale of the task facing the Government is far greater than these sums would suggest. 'To put it in context, £102m would barely pay for a handful of individual new surgeries, let alone do much to restore the more than 6,300 current surgeries across England.' Ruth Rankine, the primary care director at the NHS Confederation, said that doctors and their teams will welcome the cash boost to 'deliver high-quality care, closer to home, and fit for the 21st century'. She added: '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.'
