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https://www.theguardian.com/society...s-increase-crumbling-system-new-norm#comments
Nationally, the GP workforce has shrunk by 3.7% since 2015, with a further drop in GP partner figures of 16%, at a time when the registered patient population is rising to 60.2 million.
We are also having to deal with the fallout from early or failed hospital discharges, where patients need to be followed up to discuss or arrange tests and initiate new medications – sometimes with scant information as we await discharge letters.
Last year thousands of people did not see a specialist within the NHS target of two weeks of an urgent cancer referral, and one in eight are waiting more than 18 weeks for a routine appointment. This leads to repeat GP appointments, requests for home visits, and increased paperwork trying to expedite referrals and arrange more tests.
It is not uncommon for a patient to need an appointment the day, or day after, they are discharged to manage an urgent issue that could not be dealt with while an inpatient. This inevitably means that many patients who are still sick end up being readmitted to hospital for an acute condition such as ongoing severe infection, breathlessness or dehydration.
Many of these revolving-door patients are frail and elderly or have got dementia, and are not receiving support in the community due to social care budgets being stripped to the bone. In a health system that depends on all services linking together, it is perhaps not surprising that we are seeing the NHS crumbling.
No wonder they are leaving the profession. But RWR on here know better.
Nationally, the GP workforce has shrunk by 3.7% since 2015, with a further drop in GP partner figures of 16%, at a time when the registered patient population is rising to 60.2 million.
We are also having to deal with the fallout from early or failed hospital discharges, where patients need to be followed up to discuss or arrange tests and initiate new medications – sometimes with scant information as we await discharge letters.
Last year thousands of people did not see a specialist within the NHS target of two weeks of an urgent cancer referral, and one in eight are waiting more than 18 weeks for a routine appointment. This leads to repeat GP appointments, requests for home visits, and increased paperwork trying to expedite referrals and arrange more tests.
It is not uncommon for a patient to need an appointment the day, or day after, they are discharged to manage an urgent issue that could not be dealt with while an inpatient. This inevitably means that many patients who are still sick end up being readmitted to hospital for an acute condition such as ongoing severe infection, breathlessness or dehydration.
Many of these revolving-door patients are frail and elderly or have got dementia, and are not receiving support in the community due to social care budgets being stripped to the bone. In a health system that depends on all services linking together, it is perhaps not surprising that we are seeing the NHS crumbling.
No wonder they are leaving the profession. But RWR on here know better.