Last week, the BMA published its findings from its survey of practices about the new contract change that came on 1 October, and the results are stark.
Almost three quarters of practices have had to change their way of working due to the contract change, by taking steps such as:
- Reducing f2f appointments
- Redeploying staff
- Increasing working hours
Furthermore, these changes have increased stress levels in the team, and according to 55% of practices surveyed, had a negative impact on patient care.
READ MORE: More than half of GP practices struggling after contract changes
But what impact has the government’s attempt to ‘end the 8am scramble’ had on locum GPs?
As a locum GP myself, I’ve noticed a number of changes to my work:
– Some of my regular practices have adopted AI triage in response to these changes (at a cost of course), and I’m now seeing patients that have submitted a quick online questionnaire and been triaged into a f2f slot with the GP. I find these triage decisions to be risk-averse, but from a practice’s point of view, I assume the software costs less than taking a clinician out of consulting for a day and is therefore worth it, even with the ‘additional’ GP consultations that a more risk-averse algorithm might generate with a locum.
– I’ve been welcomed to some new practices recently, who have specifically told me that they’ve engaged a locum to help to clear the appointment backlog generated from these additional online requests, or to backfill a partner who is now triaging. I’m sure I’m not the only locum that’s experienced this, and I wonder whether this will be financially sustainable for practices and an ongoing trend, or a blip in session availability.
– My clinics are filled with more DNAs, where an appointment was automatically booked based on an online consult about something self-limiting that presumably has then resolved on its own over time that has since lapsed. This is frustrating for everyone, but may eventually lead to a behaviour change in patients who come to realise that they may not actually get a ‘quick’ answer about their query regarding a self-limiting issue, and in time choose another way to get their query resolved that doesn’t involve their GP surgery.
In summary, the national picture painted by the BMA’s survey has already filtered down to grassroots locum GPs such as myself despite the contract change being under two months’ old.
This would imply that this is a significant change for the entire profession, regardless of contractual status. It will be very interesting to see what long term changes result from this once the settling in period is over.
Dr Clare Sieber is the National Association of Sessional GPs’s sessional GP workforce advocate.
