The time has come to sack all GPs – they cost too much and do more harm than good

A week ago, NHS general practitioners (“GPs”) were threatening to go on strike in response to the government’s plan to extend online appointment booking hours. 

The plan was announced in February. At the Labour Party conference at the end of last month, Wes Streeting said he would not back down.  The change came into effect on 1 October.

“GPs are complaining that they are desperately overworked and cannot cope,” Dr. Vernon Coleman writes.  “But the evidence proves that GPs are NOT overworked.”

By Dr. Vernon Coleman

GPs in the UK are threatening to go on strike if it is made easier for patients to make appointments. They are complaining that they are desperately overworked and cannot cope.

But the evidence proves that GPs are NOT overworked. After all, the average GP now works just 23 to 24 hours a week. Most people would regard that as part-time work. And GPs are paid around £150,000 a year plus huge fees for giving vaccines about which most know only what the drug companies have told them. They won’t do visits or night calls, and many refuse to take blood samples, syringe ears or remove stitches. Thousands refuse to see patients face to face – insisting on virtual appointments by phone (which are worse than useless, very dangerous and responsible for many unnecessary and early deaths).  Despite all this, GPs are threatening to do even less work.

But look at the facts.

Today, there are nearly twice as many GPs in England and Wales as there were in 1964 when I started medical school.

And if you look at the number of GPs per 100,000 patients, the figures show that there are more GPs available than ever.

Back in 1964, there were 42 GPs per 100,000 patients.

Today, there are around 60 GPs per 100,000 patients.

And remember that GPs used to do home visits, night calls, weekend calls and calls on bank holidays. It was not uncommon for a GP to see 20 patients in a morning surgery, 20 patients in an evening surgery and do a list of home visits in between. At night and at weekends, the doctor would be on call to visit patients at home.

Today, very few GPs do any of those things.

And many GPs refuse to see patients “live” – insisting on doing their consultations over the phone or the internet. All those GPs are a disgrace to the profession because it is impossible to provide proper care for all patients without seeing most of them in person.

Ring a GP’s surgery today with an emergency and you will be told to go to hospital. In the bad old days, GPs would visit patients at home 24 hours a day. And would sew up wounds and deal with a whole range of emergencies.

The only possible conclusion is that today’s GPs are not overworked.

Indeed, they do far less work than their predecessors did decades ago.

There are more GPs than ever. And they’re doing less work.

It’s not surprising that hospital Accident and Emergency departments cannot cope.

I read an interview with a GP the other day in which the doctor said that “taking bloods and other tests” were not part of his contract and that he and his colleagues weren’t getting paid for doing these things. He said he was going to work to rule in such a way that he didn’t have any of his money docked.

I was ashamed to read a comment which seemed self-serving and pitiful. I am, to be honest, strangely relieved that most of the honest, hard-working, caring doctors I worked with are dead and will never know how low medicine has sunk. If GPs really don’t like working for the NHS, they should have the guts to resign and set up as private practitioners. They don’t do this, I suspect, because they would have to work much harder if they were private doctors. NHS GPs are hugely overpaid and underworked.

When I was a GP, we worked a damned sight harder and much longer hours (the average GP today works the equivalent of three days a week) than today’s doctors. We had responsibility for our patients 24 hours a day, every day of the year. And we took bloods, gave injections and syringed ears without whingeing that these things weren’t our responsibility. We put in stitches and then, later, we took them out again. We didn’t have a list of things that were outside our contract.

It seems to me that many of today’s GPs don’t really care about their patients but seem to be in medicine only for the money.

Do not, I’m afraid, expect too much from your own doctors. You may be lucky but, sadly, today’s doctors are rather different to the type of doctor who existed a few decades ago. After being diagnosed with breast cancer, Antoinette telephoned our GP’s surgery to make an appointment. To my astonishment (and horror) Antoinette was told that she couldn’t have an appointment to see her GP for three weeks or more. Antoinette explained that she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and that for much of August, she would be at the hospital every day for radiotherapy. The receptionist was adamant. The best she could do was to arrange for the GP to telephone her the following week.

On another occasion, not long after her diagnosis, Antoinette had a call from the GPs’ surgery. A receptionist told Antoinette that one of the GPs wanted to speak to her on the telephone. She was told that an appointment has been made for the GP to ring her in eight days’ time. She was told that her GP, who had received a letter from the hospital, would ring her then and tell her something (presumably, possibly to her disadvantage). We had no idea what the call would be about or what the something might be. We were so accustomed to waiting for news that eight days seemed a perfectly reasonable period of time to wait to receive a telephone call. I like to think that I am a gentle, forgiving sort of person but if I had my way, these people would be boiled in oil, hung, drawn and quartered, dragged through the streets, beheaded and burnt alive.

I weep at how general practice has deteriorated.

Patients get a terrible deal. Too many doctors seem to me to be lazy and greedy; in medicine only for what they can get out of it. They are paid massively well to do very little work. They have no sense of responsibility and no sense of vocation.

Many in the medical establishment are besotted with the myth of global warming and have talked about cutting back medical services to deal with this imaginary problem.

In reality I believe this is all part of the global depopulation plan and the push to Net Zero. The medical establishment seems to want to destroy health care.

The answer, I fear, is to sack all GPs. I can’t see what good they do. Indeed, most of them do more harm than good. Spend the money saved on improving A&E departments and the ambulance service. And give every family a first aid book.

Vernon Coleman’s latest book is called `The End of Medicine`. To purchase a copy CLICK HERE.

About the Author

Vernon Coleman, MB ChB DSc, practised medicine for ten years. He has been a full-time professional author for over 30 years. He is a novelist and campaigning writer and has written many non-fiction books.  He has written over 100 books which have been translated into 22 languages. On his website, HERE, there are hundreds of articles which are free to read. Since mid-December 2024, Dr. Coleman has also been publishing articles on Substack; you can subscribe to and follow him on Substack HERE.

There are no ads, no fees and no requests for donations on Dr. Coleman’s website or videos. He pays for everything through book sales. If you would like to help finance his work, please consider purchasing a book – there are over 100 books by Vernon Coleman available in print on Amazon.

Featured image taken from ‘GPs capping patient numbers could have ‘catastrophic’ effect on A&E, says NHS chief’, The Guardian, 28 July 2024