A LEADING family doctor has told how Bolton GPs are trying to do an "impossible" job as they deal with hordes of angry patients who are waiting months for hospital treatment.
Dr David Dennard has branded the situation faced by many patients in Bolton as a "joke".
In a bleak view of the state of health services in the town he said he can see no end in sight to the problems and does not know where the answer lies to the crisis GPs find themselves in.
Dr Dennard, chairman of the Bolton Medical Committee, said today he was not surprised at a damning dossier of GP opinion revealed by the British Medical Association.
The BMA report shows how doctors are bearing the brunt for NHS hospital waiting lists and are wanting to leave family practices by taking early retirement or by moving on to other parts of medicine.
Only months ago, doctors across the country voted in favour of walking out of the NHS if the government failed to improve its pay and working conditions next spring.
But Dr Dennard, a Bolton GP for 35 years, claims there is no quick fix saying doctors will need more than a contract change to improve their situation.
The BMA is now pushing for a new contract to replace the current "out-dated replica" version and asking for measures to improve patient lists to make them shorter and reduce workloads. Dr Dennard said: "I can see no end to all of this. I am not predicting a crisis -- we are already facing a crisis in Bolton.
"We are seeing insatiable demand which needs an open ended commitment. At the moment GPs in Bolton are not getting back-up."
The BMA survey revealed that morale is lower than five years ago and that more than a quarter of GPs are considering a career change.
Sixty per cent of doctors surveyed said the stress was "unmanageable and excessive" and their quality of life "unacceptable".
Dr Dennard said: "This comes as no surprise. I have been a GP for 35 years in Bolton and I have seen the situation grow worse and worse as time has gone on. I used to enjoy going to work. Now it has got impossible."
Dr Dennard, who speaks on behalf of GPs across the town, has also expressed his concern at the Royal Bolton Hospital's long waiting lists which are having a knock-on effect on GPs.
He added: "I don't know what the answer is. Throwing a lot of money at it isn't going to work. The conditions of work are not going to be much better. We need to be able to spend time with patients whom we see far too quickly. We should be spending 20 minutes with each one. We can't possibly do that at the moment."
The Government is due to take into account the BMA survey as it rethinks the GP contract -- expected to be rubber-stamped in April.
Dr Dennard added: "We are already in crisis now. The state of the hospital admissions is appalling and the waits for patients quite scandalous.
"We have become a joke. It really is not good at the moment. Most GPs are working a lot of hours and are under a lot of stress. "
The BMA survey showed that GPs want a radical overhaul of the current contract to include rewards for quality of care.
GPs also expressed doubt about the Government's NHS targets saying that they were not achievable.
However, 53 per cent of doctors think that the care patients receive in general practice is better than it was five years ago but 78 per cent think that hospital care has declined.
A massive 87 per cent of GPs were against imposing a charge for GP services.
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