General Practitioner services in the UK are ‘under severe threat of extinction’ because they cannot cope with the growing demand for care says [b]Dr Maureen Baker[/b], who chairs the [b]Royal College of GPs[/b], in a report in [s]The Guardian[/s]. Baker claims that allocating general practice an ever-smaller share of the country’s [b]National Health service (NHS)[/b] budget was foolish because GP surgeries were 'shoring up the rest of the NHS from collapse' by relieving pressure on hospitals. Surgeries are responsible for about 90% of all patient contact, but general practice only receives 8.39% of the overall NHS budget. 'GPs are doing all they can, but we are being seriously crippled by a toxic mix of increasing workloads and ever dwindling budgets, which is leaving patients waiting too long for an appointment and not receiving the time or attention they need and that GPs want to give them,' said Baker.
[link url=http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/23/family-doctor-service-brink-extinction]Full report in The Guardian[/link]