I’m a real GP, I see patients in my practice, and I regard that as the most important thing
that I do. I use a metaphor to describe general practice as a three legged stool. And the
three legged stool of general practice is the physical problems that our patients have
accompanied by the social problems they face, and their psychological wellbeing. That three
legged stool will not stand up and carry general practice and carry the NHS if it is not evenly
balanced. General practice is about providing holistic care to our patients, and today over
£1 million consultations will take place in general practice in the UK. General practitioners
are consultants in general practice, we are expert medical generalists trying to bring
the whole plethora of these issues together in the best interests of our patients. And
we do that best when we’re in an environment that’s adequately resourced and adequately
staffed. The Royal College of GPs, the largest of the medical colleges representing 52,000
or more than 52,000 doctors around the UK, we believe in working in partnership with
our patients, we believe in the delivery of holistic generalist care providing equitable
access to and delivery of high quality, effective primary care for everybody. But our campaign
priorities this year include campaigning obviously for resource staffing money, all that stuff,
but actually a lot about workforce. Recruiting, retaining within the workforce, bringing back
to the practice clinicians, and this is not just GPs, this is about the wider primary
healthcare team. I regard general practitioners as conductors
of an orchestra of colleagues in the community who are working together for the best interests
of our patients. We know, and I’m sure we will hear a lot today, but in areas where
social prescribing is used, the clinicians are more resilient, they are better able to
carry on doing their jobs, they are more satisfied in their jobs, the patients are happier and
better. And ultimately that is turning into tangible benefits for the whole of society.
Workload is unquestionably helped by the use of social prescribing. To be a primary healthcare
professional should be a joyful thing to do. We have the most phenomenal jobs in terms
of satisfaction and personal, professional reward. However we are a very demoralised
time and an understaffed and under-resourced environment. Social prescribing, if all it
did was help with joy I would welcome it, we know it does far more. When I start talking
to colleagues about social prescribing, they say to me ‘That’s nothing new, that’s
what good GPs have always done’. And I come back ‘Yes but we’re doing it bigger and
better, scaling up, using other colleagues to help us’, because I don’t know about
you, but I can’t keep in my head more than 40 or 50 organisations in my community to
tell my patients about. My notice board is covered in contacts and leaflets and bits
of paper of places that I send my patients. There is a caveat however, I’m not just
here to be all smiley and happy and say it’s wonderful. And our concern at the moment is
in a stressed environment, people will see this as great the GP is going to do it all,
general practitioners and their teams will do it all and take responsibility from other
areas in society. And there is a balance here and it has got to be tailored to the local
environment. There will always be ostriches when it comes to anything, people who have
their heads in the sand. And do you know what, I’m not worried about the ostriches. One
day they will take their head out of the sand and they will run and catch up, ostriches
do have long legs as it happens. This room, this building, is full of the visionaries,
those at the other end of the spectrum, those who get this, those who see where we’re
going with this. In the middle however I would say are still the majority of general practitioners
and their teams who think it’s a nice idea. It’s intuitive, it’s a bit motherhood
and apple pie. Once you know what it is, why wouldn’t we all be doing it? However GPs
and their teams don’t quite know where to start, they need a helping hand, they need
some exemplars. For me, I want to help turn on the lights,
so they’re stepping into the lights, not taking a leap into the dark with social prescribing.
General practice is evolving and changing. We’re working in larger groups and organisations
to protect us. There are a wider variety of healthcare professionals working alongside
GPs. I talked about that orchestra of primary care, making beautiful music takes lots of
different elements, lots of different people. This should allow GPs to have longer time
with patients with complex conditions, with multiple conditions, multiple prescribing
needs multiple issues. And to allow one of the key things to help free up some of our
time is where social prescribing really should come into its own, to take some of that stuff
away from GPs to give us the time to concentrate on the stuff that only the GP can do.
So I believe social prescribing should become a normal part of what good primary care looks
like. General practice is evolving, but we’re all on a journey, it’s really exciting.
And don’t forget that spectrum, you are the visionaries at one end of the spectrum,
help those in the middle, flick the light switch, help them into the light, don’t
make them feel they’re stuck in the dark. Thank you very much.