Sajid Javid’s attempt to blame overstretched family doctors after four months in the job reveals a contempt for frontline services
With breathtaking cynicism, Boris Johnson and Sajid Javid have taken a campaign by the Tory-supporting Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday and turned it into government policy. For months, the newspapers have been demanding that GPs return to seeing more patients face to face. Currently, just under 60% of appointments are in person, compared with 80% before the pandemic, with the rest taking place on the phone or online. The newspapers decided that this isn’t what the public wants. This week, Mr Javid retreated into his Whitehall office to take aim at medics. On Thursday, he failed to turn up at the Royal College of General Practitioners’ conference in Liverpool and issued a series of demands via the media instead.
This is toxic politics. Mr Javid claims to admire family doctors, but his actions indicate the opposite. To call for an immediate return to pre-Covid ways of working, including an end to social distancing in waiting rooms, is irresponsible when the pandemic is still with us. To tell the public that they can “demand” to see a doctor is to undermine professional decision-making processes. To promise league tables, and the naming and shaming of practices that offer too many video appointments, is a transparent attempt to bully a hard-pressed frontline medical service.
