My recent blog entitled Leaving Datchet Health Centre had over two thousand readers. The wonderful response was very gratifying, with a flood of best wishes. A genuine highlight of my medical career. I felt the love. Thank you.
Since leaving I have continued to find some occasional work in the NHS as a locum at other local surgeries and also working for the Out of Hours service.
We hear on the news that there is a shortage of doctors. This is often used as an explanation for why NHS services are not so great. So I have been astonished to find that there is actually very little NHS work available to me, as a GP with 35 years of experience. I thought it might be interesting for people to know this.
I want to work because I really enjoy the job still. I do not feel ready to hang up my stethoscope quite yet. I therefore find it upsetting, when I hear of so many of us struggling to get appointments with our GP's. And I speak daily to other GP's, who need to work for financial reasons, but who also can only find work doing unsociable hours shifts in anonymous centres, dealing with patients as a single contact with no follow up or continuity, or indeed any real element of being a family doctor.
I have spent a good part of my working life trying to effect change in the NHS. I understand change is slow and difficult for such an organisation.
The failure to support GP's towards the end of their career has come as a real surprise. More infuriating still because for several years I sat on high level committees in the Frimley area specifically focussed on workforce sustainability. Set up directly because of the threat to the system of the aging GP workforce! In retrospect seems a waste of my time.
In the meanwhile, what should I do in this circumstance? How can I get back to delivering quality care to patients who I know and who know me?
As a senior GP with many years experience, people do want to come and see me. My reluctance to be part of a two tier system of care is now balanced by the failure of the NHS to satisfactorily retain me.
Private work is appealing because there will once again be the option for me to deliver personal care, with sufficient allocated time, along with the professional satisfaction of seeing patients I know again.
And so I am joining a long established private GP practice at Princess Margaret Hospital in Windsor. The practice is run by my colleagues Dr Jeremy Wheeler and Dr Usha Sharma, who I have known and respected for many years. The opportunity to work closely with the large pool of Consultant Specialists there is an exciting prospect. I will start on 4th January 2025.
My professional website is GPWindsor.com
The private practice website is Windsorprivategp.com
Once again, and most importantly, I want to send my thanks and love to all my NHS patients over the years. A happy and healthy new year to everyone.
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