General Practitioners

Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Baroness will know that NHS England recently published its Five Year Forward View, which is a five-year plan for the future. It will encourage much more care, delivered outside hospitals, in the community, and that will require larger input from general practice. I am very pleased to tell the noble Baroness that we are committed to 5,000 more doctors working in general practice.

[Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box. I wonder whether he agrees that the Government are being very complacent on this issue. I passed my GP surgery in a small ex-mining town in the north-east this weekend. On the door I read that there were 11 or 12 sessions in the next month when the GP practice would not be open—that is, from Monday to Friday. Is it not true that the model is broken and that young doctors coming into GP practice do not want to be partners and have the responsibility of running a small business as well? Is not the model broken? When we look at what is going on in areas where health outcomes are poorer, is it not urgent that the Government pay more serious attention to that?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Baroness speaks a good deal of truth. The model that we have been working with since 1948 in this country is largely broken. We have to deliver more care through vertically integrated units of care, not just independent hospitals. Over the next five to 10 years we will see a huge consolidation of primary care. The old cottage industry model of general practice is probably broken. The Five Year Forward View recognises that and the Government have committed £8 billion to see that forward view put into practice.