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Community Health Partnerships under fire |
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Tuesday, 16 October 2007 |
The lack of opportunity to shape local NHS services and a concerted campaign to undermine traditional General Practice emanating from Westminster are contributing to the low morale of GPs, says BMA Scotland today.
A UK-wide survey of more than 11,000 GPs has found that 53 per cent
believe their morale has declined in the last five years. Nearly
two-thirds believe that changes to the NHS over the past 10 years have
made it harder to practice medicine and only half would actually
recommend a career as a GP.
More than 10 per cent of respondents reported they practised in
Scotland for the majority of their time. In Scottish terms, GPs
expressed their doubts over the success of Community Health
Partnerships (CHPs), the bodies tasked with shaping and delivering NHS
services in local communities.
Two-thirds of respondents considered the lack of effective
communication between CHPs and general practice to be a barrier to
effective GP engagement and over half considered the lack of shared
vision to be a barrier.
The survey found that GPs would be more likely to engage with CHPs if
they could demonstrate that they are effective organisations capable of
influencing their NHS Board.
Dr Dean Marshall, chairman of the BMA’s Scottish General Practitioners Committee, said:
"The morale of GPs is low because they do not feel that their voice is
being heard in the very organisations set up to shape services within
their local communities. At the same time they are constantly
criticised in the media, the victims of a Westminster-led spin
campaign, despite their hard work and commitment to delivering
consistently high standards of care for patients.
"CHPs have such great potential to engage with us and our patients to
develop and deliver services that will improve access to the services
they need. This survey bears out the concerns that the BMA has
repeatedly raised with the previous and current administrations. I hope
that we can work with the Scottish Government to find a way forward.
Marshall added that CHPs should be the cornerstone for the strategy to deliver more care closer to patients’ homes.
"We support a vision of clinically-led CHPs, supported by NHS
management, that can identify and deliver services based on local need.
Instead, GPs are faced with management-run organisations obeying the
diktats of the NHS Board. Often the Board priorities can conflict with
local need and instead of introducing services that will result in
healthier populations, the CHPs focus on delivering political targets."
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