The future of general practice is always hotly debated.
I believe this is the path primary care is on. What's your view?
👉 General Practice needs a significant and sustained funding increase. General Practice needs time to reform, repair, recover, improve. It won’t ever get all the funding it needs, so time is irrelevant.
👉 Private General Practice is booming. Increasing numbers of patients and GPs are enticed to it. This will continue, and increase further. More and more private GP Practices will open.
👉A point will come when barriers between private general practice and the NHS are removed. The NHS will get the benefit of private general practice taking some of the workload. Patients will be seeking private healthcare through choice.
👉The government will be able to say ‘patients want access to private general practice’. It will support an argument for limiting funding to NHS general practice. This will drive the continued growth of an established private general practice sector. Some practices, practitioners and patients will choose private general practice over NHS general practice.
👉The future will see a booming private general practice sector. Separate from the NHS. Seeing patients privately, and being paid by the patient, directly or indirectly through ‘insurance’.
👉 Look at the changes in dentistry and optometry over the last thirty years. The direction of travel for both is away from NHS services. To some extent General Practice will follow a similar path.