Wes Streeting vows to plough billions of kilos into normal practices

Wes Streeting today vowed to bring back the family doctor as he made his first visit as health secretary.

In a sign he plans to tackle the crisis engulfing general practice, he attended Abbey Road Surgery in North London, home to MailOnline GP columnist Dr Ellie Cannon. 

The dire crisis has seen disgruntled patients abandon NHS surgeries in favour of going private or even visiting swamped A&E units instead in recent months.

Speaking to doctors and patients Labour’s Mr Streeting pledged to ‘fix the front door to the NHS’ allowing millions of patients to see the same GP at every appointment.

He also promised to divert billions of pounds from hospitals to GP surgeries.

Less than 10 per cent of the £165billion NHS budget in England is spent on primary care, and that share has been falling, despite record high demand at GP surgeries. 

Campaigners have long warned the delays, fuelled by a shortage of GPs, puts patients at risk of having a serious illness diagnosed late or missed entirely.

Mr Streeting, who attended with NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard, said: ‘Patients are finding it harder than ever to see a GP. Patients can’t get through the front door of the NHS, so they aren’t getting the timely care they need.

‘That’s no surprise, when GPs and primary care has been receiving a smaller proportion of NHS resources. I’m committed to reversing that.

‘My first visit as Health Secretary was to a GP practice because when we said we want to shift the focus of the NHS out of hospitals and into the community, we meant it.

‘I’m determined to make the NHS more of a neighbourhood health service, with more care available closer to people’s homes.

‘Because if patients can’t get a GP appointment, then they end up in A&E, which is worse for them, and more expensive for the taxpayer.

‘We are committed to bringing back the family doctor, so patients can see the same doctor each appointment, fixing the front door to the NHS.’

Latest NHS data shows more than five million patients a month in England are waiting more than a fortnight for an appointment. 

Dr Cannon also told MailOnline: ‘He was very interested in everybody across the team, so not just GPs, but he also met our receptionists and pharmacists, and our junior doctors.

‘It was important for us that he heard about why the NHS, why they might want to go on strike as junior doctors because of training difficulties. 

‘We spoke to him about how we manage the huge supply and demand issue that we have. 

‘So the issue with, obviously, people not being able to get appointments, but how we have implemented a successful triage system, which really helps with that.’

She added: ‘We spoke a lot today about general practice being the front door of the NHS. 

‘That’s gone through different ramifications in the last few years. People see their GP as the front door to the NHS.

‘I think he realizes — I hope he realises — that if you prop up general practice and support general practice, it supports the whole system.’ 

Speaking to patients during his hour-long visit to the clinic, Wes Streeting also vowed to bring the cost-of-living to the top of the health agenda.

He acknowledged there was only ‘so much the NHS can do, even when it’s working at the top of its game’. 

Instead, issues including housing, heating and exercise are having ‘an enormous impact’ on the health service.

He added: ‘We know for all the reasons we are familiar with, it’s [the NHS is] going through a real crisis at the moment.

‘And it is things like housing, and heating, income, employment, skills, education, diet, nutrition and exercise, air quality — all of these things are having an enormous impact.’

‘I think there’s a real opportunity for us to have a serious long-term plan to improve the nation’s health and reduce health inequalities and improve health life expectancy.’

Dr Cannon also told MailOnline: ‘We got to speak to him about the other issues that people come to GP surgeries with, that maybe people wouldn’t realize.

‘So the fact that people will come and see us if they’ve got a problem with their housing, or they’ve got other issues like food poverty or sick notes.

‘It’s really important for him to understand that that also takes up a lot of general practice time.’

GPs have long complained they are overwhelmed due to the pressures of the rising and ageing population and a lack of government funding. 

Many are choosing to retire in their 50s or move abroad. 

NHS figures have also long shown GPs are under huge pressure and treating a record number of people. 

Under recommendations implemented by the BMA and European Union of General Practitioners, GPs in the UK today should not deliver more than 25 appointments a day to ensure ‘safe care’.

But family doctors have reported cramming in up to 90 appointments per day, in a situation compared to a conveyor belt.

Latest NHS statistics show there were just over 27,600 fully-qualified full-time equivalent GPs working across England in April.

This is just under 2,000 fewer than the figure recorded in the same month in 2016. 

This is despite the population growing by around 2million over the same period. 

GP surgeries have also faced rising levels of harassment, assaults and verbal abuse targeted at staff in recent months.