A practice nurse who says she was recently made redundant has challenged the health and social care secretary over staffing cuts in general practice.
The practice nurse, who called herself Marissa from Leatherhead, rang into Shelagh Fogarty’s LBC radio show on Tuesday for a Q&A programme with Wes Streeting.
She asked Mr Streeting what he was going to do to support GP surgeries and said she was recently made redundant from her practice role, along with four receptionists and ‘multiple’ GPs.
‘The services that are now being offered to patients have been cut – no vaccinations being done; no cervical screening being done regularly.
‘This seems to be happening more and more.’
She asked the health secretary: ‘What are you going to do to protect those staff [and] protect patients who need to have a service where they can go and see a GP as opposed to seeing a physician associate?’
The practice nurse also asked Mr Streeting how he was going to prevent GPs from being replaced by ‘lower paid’ and ‘lower qualified’ staff.
‘Obviously there is a place for them, but we still need our GPs,’ the nurse added.
‘Can you tell me what you’re going to do?’
In response, Mr Streeting said he had announced £889m for general practice, as part of the first budget from chancellor Rachel Reeves, to support staff recruitment.
He described the ‘bizarre situation’ of GPs being unable to find work ‘at the same time’ as patients struggle to access GPs.
‘This is just completely bonkers. So, we’re dealing with that,’ he said.
‘I agree with you that other staff, like yourself, practice nurses and other AHPs [allied health professionals] have got a role to play, but they are alongside GPs and we are determined to fix the front door to the NHS in general practice.’
Mr Streeting said that within ‘weeks of coming in’ the Labour government had provided ‘just shy’ of £100m to recruit 1,000 more newly qualified GPs by adding them to the additional roles reimbursement scheme (ARRS).
‘We’ve recruited hundreds of those already, we will be doing the rest in the coming week,’ he explained.
The health secretary added: ‘Of course, it’s going to take time but in terms of all the choices, you’ve probably heard this in some of my answers already, in terms of trying to balance all these competing demands, I really have put my money where my mouth is when it comes to general practice.
‘It won’t fix all of the problems overnight, or over the next 12 months, but it’s a good start to fix the front door to the NHS in general practice.’
Practice nurses are expected to be added to the ARRS as part of the next GP contract, following an announcement from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) last month.
