Everyone will have access to a family doctor seven days a week by the end of
the decade, David
Cameron has pledged.
But according to official figures, millions of patients have to wait a week or
more for an appointment with their GP. Doctors’ unions are warning that
there would need to be significant additional funds and staffing to
implement the PM’s pledge. Dr Richard Vautry, a GP and spokesman for the
British Medical Association, told ITV: “GPs are under huge pressure at
the moment and we can’t sustain the current service, let alone stretch it to
a seven-day service, without significant extra funding and more importantly
significant extra staff.”
As Fraser Nelson observes in
the Spectator: “Under the NHS system you can’t tell GPs to do a
thing – unless you stuff their mouths with gold, bribing them with new
contracts.”
So: is Mr Cameron’s pledge achievable, or is it pie-in-the-sky, wishful
thinking? We want to know whether you believe the promise and whether it
might sway a swing voter. Please answer in the poll below.
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(via Telegraph)
