UK faces severe shortage of doctors and funds to run hospitals- India

08   dec 2013

NHS faces 16,000 shortage of GPs due to £30bn black hole, doctors’ leader warns

the Government was told the health service will face a “catastrophe” unless more funding is poured into the nation’s struggling surgerie

Dr Sanjay Kumar Cardiac Cardiothoracic Heart Surgeon India

Shocked: Dr Clare Gerada

A £30billion black hole in the NHS could leave ­England short of 16,000 GPs by 2021, a doctors’ leader has warned.
And the Government was told the embattled health service will face a “catastrophe” unless more funding is poured into the nation’s struggling surgeries.
There is already an existing shortfall of more than 8,300 ­GPs.
But Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of ­General Practitioners, says that number could swell by more than 7,000 over the next eight years.
The RCGP has already highlighted how surgeries are under pressure as patients seek treatment there instead of enduring long waits at overstretched A&E units.
Last week NHS England revealed the service was on the brink of ­running out of cash and would face a £30billion shortfall by 2021, if it continued operating at its present level.
The RCGP believes the cash squeeze will leave ­doctors in general practice facing their own £2.7billion black hole which would leave the health ­service with 7,500 fewer doctors than needed.
Ms Gerada said: “The fact that, in just eight years, we could see a shortfall of almost 16,000 GPs is truly shocking.
General practice is at the heart of the NHS and if it is left to wither, as is the case now, it could sow the seeds of an unprecedented disintegration of the service. Ministers must move to protect patient care by increasing the funding for general practice to 10 per cent of the NHS budget immediately.
“Only by ­supporting it and allowing it to treat more patients in the community can the Government protect the NHS from catastrophe.”
A recent poll found 85 per cent of family doctors believed their surgeries were “in crisis” while half reckoned GPs could no longer guarantee patient safety.
Family doctors get only nine per cent of NHS cash but are responsible for 90 per cent of patients’ contact with the health service.
But they have come in for criticism for the high salaries some get and the extra cash they receive for working evenings and weekends.