THURROCK Council’s health chief, Cllr Barbara Rice, says she intends to hold local health organisations “to account” over the number of GPs in the borough.
Cllr Rice, who included improved GP services in her priorities for the newly appointed Director of Public Health said: “As a former nurse, the health and well-being of Thurrock people is very close to my heart; it is so important people visiting their GP feel listened to and have the best possible treatment or timely referral.”
She added: “I realise the difficulties a reorganised NHS has had in getting all of its priorities organised, but the Thurrock Clinical Commissioning Group has been up and running for two years now. They and NHS England have said publicly there are not enough GPs in Thurrock and that many of those we have are approaching or past retirement age.
“In the next few weeks and months I want to see action. I want NHS England to do something to ease the load on our GPs; something to attract new and younger GPs to Thurrock.
“And I want to see the local CCG putting pressure on the national organisation. In years gone by when Thurrock had its own PCT they went out and brought in doctors to ease the crisis. I want to see similar thinking now.”
She added: “I’m glad to see our MP supporting our calls for longer opening hours for doctor practices, but I think it is more important we have enough good and well-trained GPs sharing the load before we start insisting on extending their hours of operation.
“Yes we need doctors available in the evenings and at weekends, but we also need doctors who are fit and well themselves; doctors who are not having to deal with too many patients; we need more of our practices to have more than one GP; and we need an injection of young doctors to ensure we are not at risk of the situation suddenly getting even worse.”
She said: “Public health is now a function of the council, but if there is a problem with GPs and GP access that puts our public’s health at risk.
“The council also has a Health and Well-being board, and a Health and Well-being scrutiny committee. I want to see both groups focusing on the GP issue and holding the NHS to account.
“I want to join with them in getting both the CCG and NHS England representatives coming to talk with us directly about what they propose to do and, probably more importantly, when.”
