Marvin OnumonuGrassroots doctors across England raised serious concerns about the Government’s 10-year health plan, according to a survey by the British Medical Association (BMA).
53% of respondents said they strongly supported more specialty training places, and nearly 40% strongly supported increasing the number of medical academics.
Just under half (44%) strongly supported more opportunities for research and innovation.
In a speech at the BMA’s representative body meeting, BMA chair of council Tom Dolphin said: “We share the goal of bringing back our country’s health service from the precipice where it teeters today, because the NHS is far removed from what it should be.
“Our patients rightly expect far better because they remember the NHS when it worked.
“Waits for hospital appointments are too often measured in years, not days and weeks.
Dolphin added: “Public health has been broken by restructure and neglect, with no attempt to revive it despite the pandemic exposing how fragile our nation’s health has become.”
Doctors wanted Health Secretary Wes Streeting to give clear commitments that the plan could actually reverse the NHS crisis and deliver for patients.
Most doctors surveyed wanted the BMA to engage with the plan but push for changes in areas that worried them.
Many said they did not believe care could be delivered as planned in neighbourhood health hubs.
Dolphin said the Government will need to explain how fewer staff will be able to deliver more care through neighbourhood health centres, open 24 hours a day, six days per week.
More than three quarters (77%) of GPs said the plan would reduce continuity of patient care, and over 80% said it would reduce the independence of general practice.
Dolphin added: “General practice is the most efficient part of the health service. This is despite being neglected by successive governments, resulting in us having a smaller GP workforce today than we had in 2015 and Doctors told us, if we want to bring back the family doctor, the government should invest in the family doctor.”
The BMA said the findings, along with workshops and its own analysis, would be used to shape its approach to influencing the development and implementation of the Government’s plan.
He said: “We are not just doctors; we are patients, relatives, and carers too. And neither as doctors, nor as patients, are we opposed to, or indifferent to reform.”
