100 signatures reached
To: Northern Ireland Assembly Executive - DHSSPS - DFP
NO to GP Charges In Northern Ireland
Dear Northern Ireland Executive, First Minister & Deputy First Minister, Health Minister & Minister Of Fiance & Personnel;
Ask those addressed not to introduce GP charges in Northern Ireland.
While we the undersigned recognize the pressures that the health system is under due to years of mismanagement and run down by the combined political representatives on the Executive, we object to any proposal to introduce GP charges.
Why is this important?
The NHS is prided on being free at the point of delivery, in Northern Ireland we deliver our health service under the banner of the NHS and the ethos of free at the point of delivery should never be changed.
GP's deal with up to 90% of face to face contact of patients within the NHS, their contribution cannot be measured with a contact fee.
As potential patients we have already received directions not to attend A&E's and to first consider vising a GP, GP waiting lists are in the extreme and practices are already struggling to meet the demand placed on them on top of having to cover unfilled doctor posts in Hospitals as well as their own general Practice.
Some GP surgeries are beginning to to look like our crowed A&E waiting rooms with patients queuing up for appoints in the mornings due to the limited capacity of GP practices.
Growing waiting lists for outpatient and day case procedures are leading to more patients visiting their GP to ensure that their illness has not got worse while waiting for treatment.
In a recent poll by doctors in the British Medical Association, BMA, doctors overwhelmingly voted not to introduce a GP charge at its 2014 annual GP conference in York.
"Dr Laurence Buckman, a GP from London, added the idea was "unethical, dangerous and disingenuous".
Dr Chaand Nagpaul said general practice was becoming "conveyor belt medicine". "Add to this the sheer volume of phone calls, visits, repeat prescriptions, results, reports and hospital correspondence and we have an unmanageable, exhausting and unsustainable workload that puts safety and quality at risk,"
