Joint Action In Primary Care
All practices in Herefordshire have agreed to participate in joint action with the British Medical Association.
This is 𝐍𝐎𝐓 about pay but about General Practice receiving the amount of funding needed to employ enough doctors, nurses and other staff to provide sufficient appointments and for our staff to work safely.
This joint action across the country is aiming for the government to look at General Practice and reconsider the amount of funding it receives. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐰𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐤𝐞.
The BMA recommend safe working for General Practice to be 𝟐𝟓 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐧. Once at capacity, the advice is to divert patients to local urgent care. We are working very hard to ensure as little disruption to our normal service as possible. We will continue to triage requests for care and patients can submit online forms as normal. However, on occasion we may reach full capacity. On these occasions those patients who GPs assess as needing on the day care will be asked to contact NHS111.
The decision to take action has not been taken lightly. All practices in Herefordshire met last week and discussed options at length.
Sick children, vulnerable or palliative patients will not be turned away as patient safety is still our priority.
In the meantime please continue to use our services as normal and rest assured that patient care is still our priority.
We thank you for your understanding, we are hopeful that the issues of funding can be resolved quickly.
