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Sarah Evans' viewpoint in the February edition of the BJGP misses one fundamental. Funding and pay. The amount we can earn now as sessional doctors bears little connection with the a duty of responsibility for access nor for continuity.
As an NHS user continuity ranks highly and as a GP has been one of the main plus points of my career as well as responding to urgent need. Both things we seem to be trying to avoid. The future though is unlikely to continue with these rates of pay as it is likely that the accountable care organisations will continue to pay doctors much more than the allied health professionals who do much the same job most of the time.
Whilst agreeing with a lot of the article I fear we are talking ourselves into a spiral of despair, with an us and them mentality (them being the NHS hierarchy) and the patient almost being the helpless pawn in the middle.
Competing Interests: None declared.