Saturday 14 December 2013

Meet your MP to save your GP - Toolkit

The NHS is stretched to breaking point. General Practice in the UK is high quality and uniquely cost-effective but is even more at risk.
Visit your MP's next surgery to tell them how General Practice can save the NHS!
Please add as comments to this post killer points for people to use in such meetings.

To start us off, here are some nuggets drawn from RCGP's The 2022 GP: Compendium of Evidence by +clare gerada, Nigel Mathers, Ben Riley and Mark Thomas.
  • "a health service based upon the GP is likely to be less costly than a hospital-based service and the aim should be to provide the maximum amount of care in the community" - p38 (ref 104)
  • the general practice consultation rate [per patient] has almost doubled in the last decade - p19 - from 3.9/year in 1995 to 5.5/yr in 2008 - p20 (ref 55)
  • 90% of all NHS contacts take place in general practice - p40 (ref 55)
  • "In England, an increase in just one GP per 10,000 population is associated with a 6% decrease in mortality" p 40 (ref 113)
  • "NHS Choices ... led to an increased [albeit appropriate] ... demand rather than preventing it from occurring in the first place" - p36 (ref 96)
  • Great table (4) on page 39 exploring key differences between generalists and specialists

References

96. Paul Nelson, Joanna Murray, Muhammad Saleem Kahn. NHS Choices Primary Care Consultation Final Report 2010
104. Department of Health and Social Security, Welsh Office. The organisation of group practice. 
A report of a sub-committee of the Standing Medical Advisory Board. London: Stationery 
Office, 1972.
113. Martin Gulliford. Availability of primary care doctors and public health in England: is there an association? Journal of Public Health Medicine 2002; 24(4): 252–4

1 comment:

jim said...
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