Jeremy

Glad to hear your side of the argument. I've been watching the discussions
for some weeks, and felt it was time to point out the reality of GP work.
There are lots of rumours, but in practice, the majority of GPs are earning
£50-80K doing 60-100 hour weeks (incl paperwork++++). The associated
stresses may not be as glamorised as those felt by A&E colleagues, but they
are just as real!

As a GP (& BASICS Dr) who has worked in hospital for several years before
settling in General Practice, I can appreciate the increasing pressures A&E
consultants are being put under. Many more patients are attending  A&E
nowadays rather than seeing their GP. This is not the fault of the GP:
Inceasing patient expectations (?often government-driven) mean patients
often demand to be 'seen now' for trivial self-limiting complaints. The
system as a whole is being overwhelmed by unrealistic patient-expectations
that cannot be met by GPs alone.

Please don't take it out on the GPs -we are in it as much up to our necks as
our Consultant colleagues!!!!

Neil

----- Original Message -----
From: Jeremy Mayhew <[log in to unmask]>
To: N Meardon <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, June 28, 2003 5:08 PM
Subject: Re: Primary care in A&E


I wouldn't get too excited Danny - this income isn't typical and I
suspect Robbie works in excess of 100 hours per week for the 8 months! A
locum staff grade on 25000 could earn over 90k at £25/hr if he/she
wanted to work 6 12 hour days a week. Most GPs are every bit as
overworked as everybody else in the NHS. My experience of a 4 hour GP
surgery is that they are much worse than the average physician OPD and a
typical GP income is still in the region of £60,000 for a 50-60 hour
week. That is why I can see some opting for the OOH payments and doing
OOH work instead of daytime work. COOPs generally are well organised and
usefully match resources to demand so that although hard work, the
resources are usually there to reduce stress levels.
I don't understand how a GP can gross 277k - but many do so by doing
private work such as occupational health, insurance medicals,
medicolegal work,  private practice, police work all of which can
relatively easily double ones NHS income.

I think that consultants pay is poor in view of their expertise, and
that specialities that require more on call commitment and presence
should also pay a lot more to account for the fact that the work is
intensive and needs to be led from the top, which is not necessarily the
case in hospital medicine where consultants delegate a lot more to
middle grades. I wish you all every success in negotiating a better deal
for all. My concern is that specialities such as A&E are so different
from other specialities that are more 9-5 that there should be separate
negotiations to ensure the basic salary is excellent, and recognition of
the fact that the bulk of work is purely NHS. An interesting view is
that the change in OOH provision is filled with opportunities to
coordinate emergency care resources. PCTs will be looking to how patches
can be covered, some coops face extinction, some ambulance trusts coops
and hospital trusts have joined up to provide a bid for OOH care.