• Luke Pollard MP has led a delegation of Plymouth GPs to see the Minister responsible for primary care to demand better support for our city’s GPs
• Plymouth GPs Carmel Boyhan Irvine, Charlotte Ferriday and Amanda Harry made the case for better funding after BBC Panorama highlighted problems with our city’s family doctor provision
• Luke proposes Minister looks at additional funding for Plymouth’s family doctors with now a quarter of the population covered by emergency GP contracts

Last week in Parliament Luke Pollard MP led a delegation of GPs from Plymouth to meet with the Minister for Public Health and Primary Care Seema Kennedy MP. The group told the Minister of the pressures faced by GPs in Plymouth due to a crisis in recruitment and retention, as well as a lack of funding for frontline services.

Commenting on the meeting, Luke Pollard MP said:

“Plymouth’s primary care is in crisis. A quarter of our city’s population is now covered by emergency GP services after their surgeries handed back their contracts. With more doctors reaching retirement age in the next few years and continuing problems recruiting the number of doctors we need as a city we need Ministers to act swiftly to support our local family doctors.

 

The reason we are in a state of crisis is not because our doctors, nurses and health professionals are not working hard enough, it is because they need more support and more resources especially at a time when more and more patients are presenting with more complex issues.

 

In April I led a debate in Parliament on primary care in Plymouth and made the case that we need urgent action. I wanted the Minister to hear for herself what is going wrong and what needs to be done and the three Plymouth GPs did a superb job in making a robust case to the Minister.”

Commenting on the meeting, Dr Charlotte Ferriday said:

“I don’t think the Government see the effect that their cuts to other services have on our workload. In my view this is less to do with the aging population than to do with the cuts and destruction of the services that support our patients at a time when the NHS has been massively cut and expensively reorganised repeatedly.”

Notes:

• Primary care debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvd5OCocou0