Letter to The Telegraph on impact of NHS without GPs

The Telegraph has published the Royal College of General Practitioners’ (RCGP) chair Helen Stokes-Lampard’s letter to the editor in December in response to Philip Johnston’s proposal that the NHS can survive without general practice.

Stokes-Lampard dubbed Johnston’s proposal as ‘ludicrous’ and said the care GPs and teams provide to patients is the most cost-effective part of the NHS.

She said GPs make the vast majority of NHS patient contacts for just nine per cent of the overall budget, and that they keep the NHS upright by alleviating pressures across the health service - not contributing to them.

Stokes-Lampard wrote: “To say that A&E departments are becoming the gatekeepers of the NHS is naïve, and frankly wrong. Last year more than ten times as many consultations were made in general practice than there were attendances at Emergency Departments.

“As for Mr Johnston's suggestion that technology will replace family doctors – tell that to the 90 per cent of patients who consistently report having trust and confidence in their GP. We embrace technology in general practice, but no app or algorithm will ever be able to deliver the holistic care that hard-working GPs are highly trained to do.”

Stokes-Lampard ends her letter with an invite to Johnston to visit her and her patients in her surgery before proposing that the NHS gets rid of GPs.