To think this budget will finish us off

[BurnoutGP]

I am a GP Partner of over 20 years. I am now senior partner for the last few years. We have seen year on year below inflation funding increase. With an explosion in demand and massive shift of work from secondary care. We have issues wirh recruitment.
Our partner income is shrinking year on year. We are now always overdrawn and this gets worse every month.
We just cannot soak up the MLW and NI without adequate resource uplift.
I think we will be done. I'm so very tired of the constant battle and the demand and anger while working "part time" 60hr weeks.
We will have to hand back our contract. And we wont be the only one. That will leave one surviving practice in my area.
I'm done.

But if your running a business wouldn’t you expect external stressors? If you can’t manage them the business fails. I can’t think of any sectors this doesn’t apply to.

Exactly. The GP service is an outdated model with incredibly low satisfaction rates and it’s time it’s revamped. Get rid of all the badly run small businesses, put all GPs on a realistic salary with contracted hours and set standards for the service. It’s absolute madness to hold on to an 80 year old model which has long ceased to work.

See that's the thing.
Younger inexperienced staff don't have the "spider senses" or years of experience and knowledge to pick up on these things.
That in turn means things can be missed or overlooked and patients suffer as a result.
More and more of the mature staff leave healthcare hand over fist to go to other jobs or roles and then there is a massive black hole of lack of experience and knowledge.
It takes years for a person to build this up. Years. You just don't walk through the door with that in your head.
It's a sad state of affairs that healthcare in the UK has come to this. Very sad.
I'm sorry OP to hear things are so crap for you, your partners, all your staff, your practice and ultimately your patient catchment. I don't know what to say. It really sucks 😞

AND taxing the betting Companies that leech off the less well off.

But no they won't do that because BIG CORP pays into their coffers !!!

Just watch Amazon raise its Prime charges to offset the extra employee costs... Easy for them tho...

No clue why GPs were forced to go private anyway....I heard Symphony got rid of gps as too expensive and instead employed cheaper PAs. Noone can get appointments but they voted for Tories so what did they expect?

To be fair, it would be easy for a drastically undercharging vet’s practice too. It’s got to be one of the worst run businesses I’ve ever heard of. The miracle is it’s survived as long as it has.

@blossomtoes It’s madness to hold on to an 80 year old model which has long ceased to work

Couldn’t one say exactly the same, word for word, about the NHS as a whole? I’m pleased Wes is saying all the right things about reform, but I worry that the inbuilt inertia and reticence to change in the NHS and civil service means that a lot of time and effort will be spent on an ultimately fruitless exercise, further impacting patients (and taxpayers)

So if not business, which public services would you cut (even further) or which group of people would you tax?

The Tories fucked up the economy and public services. Labour needs to raise money to fix the mess. There's a big black hole in public finances and public services.
So what's the solution? Who should pay? Labour promised not to tax working people, so that's not an option either.

Truth hurts doesn’t it?

I can’t see that working. Children need human interaction, just as babies do. They can learn a certain amount from screens, but too much screen time is bad for their brain development.

I thought it was because they were paid fees for every visit?

It’s not the truth though - we put clients first over money. That makes us a good business and before this budget we were profitable. Your narrative is false, ladened with conjecture and ill-conceived.

Awful comment. What do you know about running a vets? Or any business for that matter? Stop with the personal attacks.

Quite a lot about running a business as it happens. It’s not a personal attack, it’s an observation based on the information provided by the poster. It’s not me who’s calling people “twats”.

Seconded.

Personal attacks 😂 What like calling someone a twat you mean?

Maybe keep your 'observations' to yourself, unless you can enlighten us with your expert knowledge of business. It's pretty horrific for some business owners right now, try empathy.

I think people are focusing on the wrong thing here. It is a tough budget because it needs to plug a hole in public finances while at the same time spend to support struggling public services such as the NHS. Nightmare scenario. Why is Britan so much in the red? Other countries are not in this position financially, that is what people need to be angry about.

@Dulra I agree. From a very quick Google search, as so many medical professionals are moving to Australia, seems GPs also run as businesses contracted to the NHS. How come.

Completely incorrect.

Do you check into what Labour tell you, or simply believe it?

BIossomtoes · Yesterday 13:09

All the weekends I spent vaccinating people against flu and covid, forget that

I had my flu and covid vaccinations at Boots. Is it really sensible for GPs to be doing this low level stuff? It’s a prime example of how money could be saved.

This.

Neither I have read international opinions on it

The consultants were bought off; it was they who had their mouths stuffed with gold, to abandon professional freedom, not the GPs.

The is the issue though. For the NHS to run effectively as a whole system individuals do need to ‘abandon professional freedom’ in favour of working to ensure an effective system. GPs are not barristers who must be an independent voice for their clients apart from the court.

Some years ago I watched a program where a business guru was bought in to a hospital to try and improve the efficiency. He was placed in a department and it was immediately clear that the consultant had grasped it as an opportunity to push his pet projects. The business guru was taken by the ‘doctor knows best’ and pursued the consultant’s vision for some time - until someone told the infection control nurse. But it was illustrative of one of the issues - the NHS is structured around doctors and how they provide their service, not the patient journey. It needs to be rebuilt around how the patient journeys through care. An individual doctor might think a certain system would work best for them, and it might be more effective if you just measure their department. But not when the patient’s whole journey is considered.

I think a comparison can be drawn between veterinary practices and General Practitioners (GP practices).

My GP: operationally inefficient with quite arrogant doctors in many cases, lack of transparency over communication, some very rude admin and support staff, and extremely difficult to book an appointment. A side of bureaucracy and poor time keeping thrown in. It is free at the point of delivery but the public pay tax and NI for the privilege of receiving NHS services. As I access much pruvately, I have received 3 NHS births and probably an average of one visit per year, so have paid handsomely. When DS2 died at 27 weeks, the practice didn't raise an eyebrow let alone ask how we were. I am also insured so effectively pay twice.

My vet: extremely efficient, caring, easy to make appointments despite being very busy. The staff are lovely. They are conservative in relation to treatment and have the animals best interest at heart. I participate in the plan for flea/worm drops, vaccinations and a 6 monthly checkup. Beyond that I pay a reasonable fee at the point of delivery. Over 15 years my last cat racked up about £10k in vet bills. When he died the vets were incredibly compassionate when I took his body in and sent a card. My animals are also insured.

I feel my vet provides an excellent and caring service. My GP provides a very poor service and frankly I don't think they give a flying fuck.

The difference is whether money changes hands. My vet and their staff don't think they are doing me a favour. The GP does and yet I pay handsomely for their services albeit indirectly.