01 August 2024
President of the 香港六合彩直播开奖, Dr Jo Ledingham has said that the government must rapidly work to resolve the industrial dispute with British Medical Association (BMA) General Practioner (GP) members, who today voted 98% in favour of taking industrial action.
Dr Ledingham said; 鈥淲e understand why GPs in the BMA have overwhelmingly come to this decision. However, Rheumatology teams across the country will be extremely worried about today's news that they are set to take industrial action over funding.鈥�
Proposed measures by the BMA include what鈥檚 known as an indefinite 鈥榳ork to rule鈥� action, where GPs limit the number of patient appointments they see each day, a step which could see available appointments reduced by as much as 30% across England. The reduction in availability of GP appointments could greatly impact secondary care services and emergency medicine, as patients turn to other services to be seen when they fail to get help and advice from their GP.
About the potential 鈥榳ork to rule鈥� measures Dr Ledingham said, 鈥淩heumatology departments were already struggling with the number of patients contacting their patient advice lines prior to today's developments. Should GP capacity be reduced by a further 30% the impact on advice line and other secondary care 香港六合彩直播开奖 services, as well as shared care agreements is anticipated to be severe.鈥�
She continued; 鈥淔urthermore, we know the most important factor in the long-term health of patients living with rheumatic diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Lupus is timely diagnosis and treatment of their condition. Delays of just a few weeks can make an enormous difference to the long-term health outcomes of these patients, and we鈥檙e concerned that an indefinite work to rule measure from GPs could hamper timely referral to specialist teams. There are tens of thousands of newly diagnosed rheumatic patients every year who are at risk.鈥�
She concluded; 鈥淲e are therefore calling on the government to work with the BMA to rapidly resolve this industrial action, to protect other parts of the health service and to guarantee patients can get the timely, high-quality care they need to live well.鈥�