Leicestershire GP concerned local practices will "disappear" if poor treatment continues
Oakham Medical Practice's reception has been closed for a week after verbal abuse towards staff
It's now a week since Oakham Medical Practice closed its reception, after staff received verbal abuse from patients.
The Local Medical Committee for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLRLMC) are supporting the decision, and say it's a sad consequence of an ongoing issue.
A new report from the LLRLMC says half of GPs report facing verbal abuse, one in five have been threatened themselves and 67% have witnessed violence or abuse against other staff.
Dr Grant Ingrams is from Oakmeadow surgery in Leicester:
'Oakham medical practice made the decision because of the amount of abuse. At my own practice we've actually lost two members of staff who've cited increasing abuse by patients the reason why they left.
'75% of practices are saying that they're having daily abuse by members of the public.'
Unfair treatment
Dr Ingrams says he understands patient frustration, but any threatening behaviour towards staff is unjustified considering that GPs are recording more appointments than ever before, despite still recovering from a pandemic:
'The number of appointments that general practices have delivered have gone up. We're looking now at about a 20% higher number of appointments than before the pandemic. In fact in March 2022, the last recorded data, the most appointments ever by general practice were recorded.'
'But we know that the workload has gone up more than that, so there is a mismatch between what we can do and what the demand is on the system - considering we're working flat out.'
A similar path to dentistry
Dr Ingrams is also concerned that if local GPs continue to be treated poorly all-round, there may be a similar fate to what happened to NHS dentists:
'What I'm really worried about, if the abuse continues, if the workload continues, if the reduction in the workforce goes down, is that we'll end up like an NHS dentistry and disappear.'
'We all know what difficulties patients are having at the moment in getting appointments. That's not the fault of the general practice. It's not the fault of our staff or the GPs - it's the fault of long term underinvestment in the NHS and of course the pandemic.'