It’s time for NHS GPs to stop hiding behind their telephones

Nye Bevan famously said that he was only able to persuade family doctors to support the creation of the NHS because he ‘stuffed their mouths with gold’. But at least he obtained good service from them — including home visits. Until Tony Blair awarded GPs hefty pay rises while allowing them simultaneously to opt out of night-time and weekend work, they were responsible for their patients’ care 24 hours a day, seven days a week — with practices often pooling resources to provide continuous cover.

But the role of GPs has become increasingly unclear: do patients have a right to be seen in person? It was revealed this week that locum GPs are being offered £100 an hour to conduct telephone appointments from their own homes. Average GPs’ pay now exceeds £100,000 a year for the first time, having risen by 11 per cent in the past four years. Yet it seems to have become harder than ever for an NHS patient to see a GP.