At the moment the NHS is under extraordinary pressure. This is particularly true of General Practice. There are increased expectations from government and our patients about what we should be doing. Increasing hospital waiting lists have a big impact on us – patients who are waiting to see specialists or for treatment or operations need more input from us.
There are huge financial pressures on General Practice. We want to let you know about the effect all of this is having on your medical centre.
Over the last few years, the medical centre has been under increased financial pressure. Like all your households we have had increases in all our costs – everything we buy costs more, our energy costs have spiralled, and our staffing costs have also increased. Over the last few years, the funding we get from government has increased by 2.1% each year. This increase does not get near to covering our current costs.
You may have read about “new” money that has come into primary care networks. Some of this money pays for staff that are making a significant difference to patient care. However, the funding does not help the core medical centre finances and cannot be used to pay for additional GP or practice nurse appointments.
The impact of the financial pressures is already being felt. The core income to practices fell by 20% in the last year. We cannot afford to pay for locums or over-time. Southgates and The Woottons Surgeries is a team of fantastic people that we are all very proud to be part of. It is the team that makes the surgery such a great place to work and why our patients get good care.
We are also very well supported by our patients and our patient group – which we value hugely. We think it is important that we are honest with you about what is happening. There are some things that you will notice will have to change and we need you to know why things are changing.
All our staff are working extremely hard to provide the best level of care they can for you. We cannot work any harder. The current financial pressures and change in staffing levels mean that we will not always be able to offer the same level of service you are used to. We can only afford to offer the level of service we are funded for. You may have already noticed that waiting times for appointments are longer.
There will be times that we may need to ask you to access healthcare elsewhere. For example, pharmacies are now able to assess and treat a number of minor conditions. Acute eye conditions can be seen by the Primary Eye Care Service. The way you contact and access us may change. We are doing everything we can to try and minimise the impact on the services we offer. We are looking at different ways of delivering services so that you can still access good quality care with us.
You can help us by trying to self-manage minor illness, by using other services when they are offered to you and by attending the health checks you are invited to.
If you feel strongly about the issue of general practice funding, you may wish to contact the politicians that control it – we are in an election year.
We will keep you up to date with changes at Southgates and The Woottons Surgeries. We will do everything we can to continue to provide you with good quality care. We are very grateful for all the support you offer us.
The Partners
Southgates and The Woottons Surgeries
March 2024