The town so deprived of GPs that children seek medical help from youth workers - BBC Newsnight

Patients living in more deprived areas have fewer GPs per head of population, and a worse experience of GP appointments, according to new research for BBC Newsnight.

GP care is under intense strain up and down the country, with recruitment and burnout listed as key factors - but this new analysis suggests the more deprived your local area, the more the strain might be felt.

Researchers from Cambridge University commissioned by Newsnight told the programme inequalities had widened in the last year, and that GP practices in poorer areas were not only dealing with deeper, more complex health needs than wealthier areas, but were receiving less funding per patient to deal with them.

Newsnight has been to Blackpool, the poorest town in England, to hear first hand from doctors, public health officials and patients what it’s like being sick in an under-doctored, hugely deprived area.


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[ToCoSo]

NHS and GP care is collapsing, but it's strangely not a story in the papers. It used to be a top story. Waiting lists were an easy headline. What has this government done for the last 12 years.

[rinapop]

Its throughout the UK, if I hadn't had private healthcare in my home country, I would be hospitalised or dead from my chronic illness. The neglect and gaslighting I faced at the NHS was atrocious

[ShutThePuck]

This isn't an accident, the breakdown of the NHS has been by design. If it were left to the conservatives we all know where the UK would be headed - a privatised healthcare system, you get there by completing gutting the NHS not only of resources that they need today, but by also making it extremely unattractive for people to look to becoming young nurses or doctors. A lack of both human resources and material resources, then feign shock about how ineffective the NHS is and how a private system would be so much better.

[kolpoiy]

This is just heartbreaking. People deserve better for the money they put towards the government (tax). What is the point if you’re only seen and attended to when you’re at death’s door. I feel sorry for the elderly and children the most. Bleak and sad

[BeardedSte]

I'm amazed there's youth workers there. Youth work doesn't exist in a lot of places either.

[salamanco]

If this was a town in Scotland, the media would tear SNP apart; Sturgeon's Scotland etc. Notice the lack of screaming for the Health Minister to resign.

[selenedust]

I’m in the us and primary care doctors are rare now. They are all Nurses which is better than no care at all. I’ve been trying to see a specialist for migraines for 9 months now. I pay $700 a month for medical insurance plus I have to pay $2, 500 per year before my insurance will pay anything. It’s bad everywhere. I don’t know where all the money goes.

[SuperTonyony]

This is a problem in the US, also. I live in a city of 30, 000 people, and the wait time to see a dentist is about four months, for a GP about six months, and for a specialist about eight months.

[rx]

Same in Canada aswell, very few doctors available .
I think after Pandemic lot of doctors quit

[Kam-gobc]

Do people even think about why we don't have enough GPs? Its not that they're not there, a lot have quit because the stress is not worth the pay.

[heathermaich]

Same in New Zealand. I have to wait a month for a GP appointment

[Raymot]

In Australia, you can get a GP appointment in a day or two. If you want a "free" appointment, you'll wait longer. The issue here is that Medicare doesn't pay doctors a living wage. (Actually, the money from Medicare is meant to be a rebate to the patient, not the doctor's fee). The rebates haven't changed for 12+ years.

[saraharold]

You have to wait ages at every stage and can't get a diagnosis at the GP level but have to wait for the consultant stage.
They need diagnostic and analysis tools at the GP clinic level to take pressure off the hospitals

[rtyuio]

Additional to this program I also would like to point out that many interventions or investigations CANNOT be undertaken by GPs - they rely on referring to other specialist areas/clinics. What happens when there is limited or no capacity for these referrals? They are the responsibility of the GP to manage, who can do next to nothing. I could go on, but I don't have the emotional energy.

[Superfreaky]

And yet the people coming into this country illegally get seen by gps straight away.

[megstlimeelim]

If GPs & med profs are as well paid as politicians, bankers, lawyers, IT & HR consultants, Bureaucrats, there will be no shortages of supply 🙄

[elizaann]

Not just Blackpool, it is throughout England. Would be interesting to know just how many "gps" have chosen to go part time. Work life balance and all that. Is it shortage of man hours worked by them as much as an actual shortage.

[ericastones]

Because the government won't give councils means to improve areas limited to get GPs and travel for getting there.

[wewenang]

why didnt the NHS send more GP to these people? In my country the ministry of health will send GP to all these places whether the GP like it or not it's in the power of the government to send them over yonder, it's in their agreement when sign in to work for the ministry. The GP can only ask for relocation after they served at least 5 years in these poor area.

[squirrel]

UK is a class based society. Doctors don't want to live in poor areas is probably part of the reason