GPs need to reconnect with the communities that they operate in - Yorkshire Post Letters

Being a retired GP I was very interested to read Daxa Patel’s very good article (The YP, 12/01/2024) about the current problems in General Practice.

I think the final paragraph in the article sends a strong message about training for General Practice. Daxa Patel states that more should be invested in training for General Practice, as better bedside manners could also help to make a difference. I couldn't agree more.

I was a GP Trainer for many years, the course organiser in Airedale Hospital was the late Dr. Barry Brewster, a well known and greatly respected rural GP based in Settle. He was a close friend of mine and he was a great believer in treating patients with understanding and respect.

Barry, like myself, felt that knowing your patient and their family was very much part of their care. To acquire this knowledge you had to live in the community and be part of it like the local vicar, shop keepers etc. This meant that you had to work full time as a GP and thus establish continuity of care.

Many of the GPs now in practice do not live in the immediate area and are only working one or two days per week in the practice, so how can they establish any form of continuity of care.

We often used to say ‘it's not what you know but what you know about the people you are looking after’.

When I decided to read medicine at university I knew that it would involve long hours and hard work. Also going into front line medicine you must like people, whatever their background, you must realise that you can learn something from most of these people.

I appreciate that General Practice has changed in the last few years. There is a lot more form filling and paperwork to do now, which is obviously putting more strain on GPs, taking them away from patient contact.

I think that the difficulty that people have in seeing their GP face to face is putting more pressure on A&E departments, as people are going there rather than seeing their GP.

Let us hope that General Practice can be improved. I fear that it will never return to the interesting but hard work that we used to enjoy.