Budget 2017 – Putting GPs in A&E will result in MORE patients flocking to hospitals and won’t solve NHS crisis, leading doc warns

PLANS to install GPs in A&E departments to relieve mounting pressures on struggling hospitals will have the opposite effect, leading medics have warned.

Philip Hammond today pledged £100million to station family doctors on site in hospitals.

But the move announced in today's Budget has provoked criticism from doctors.

The money is part of a £425million investment in the NHS over the next three years, the Chancellor said.

And it comes alongside a £2billion injection of cash to tackle social care.

But, the British Medical Association - the voice of doctors and medical students - said the announcement "does nothing to address the gaping hole in NHS finances".

It's chair, Dr Mark Porter, said:"There is a £30billion gap to fill.

"The NHS and social care are at breaking point and have been failed by party politics for too long."

The £100million will go directly to A&E departments from April, to help prepare for next year's inevitable winter crisis, the Chancellor said.

The aim is to help patients get to primary care faster, by taking pressure of already swamped emergency medics.

GPs will be moved on-site and given allocated spaces in casualty to assess patients as they arrive.

But Dr Porter, said: "The crisis in the NHS does not stop at the hospital door.

"Our A&Es are struggling because of an overstretched system.

"Having GPs in A&E won't reduce admissions - if anything this could have the effect of attracting more people to hospitals."

He said the Government needs to explain how they plan to fund and recruit additional GPs to work on site at hospitals, "when there already aren't enough to meet the needs of the public".

"Many are already working in practices with permanent vacancies which they are unable to fill, despite Government promises at the last election to recruit 5,000 more doctors into general practice," he said.

Responding to the announcement, the Royal College of General Practitioners' chair, Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, said the best place for GPs in treating their patients in the community.

She said the £100million would be better spent bolstering general practice to help family medics "deliver more care and services, and in doing so alleviate pressures right across the NHS".

"GPs working in A&E units have been successful in some areas, but the decision to implement this must be based on local need," she added.

"The Government must realise the most severe pressures in A&E are not simply down to inappropriate attendance but the inability to admit seriously unwell patients, and lack of capacity to discharge them into the community.

"The entire health and social care system is in crisis so the extra funding for social care is a good start, but it is only a short-term sticking plaster and we must make sure that the extra investment and additional GPs promised by NHS England in the GP Forward View do not fall by the wayside."

The idea to station GPs in emergency departments is not a new one.

In December a Sun investigation revealed family doctors were already being drafted in to treat patients turning up with minor ailments.

But experts raised fears that GPs lack the skills of highly-trained emergency medics, to deal with more serious cases.

They are less likely to spot killer conditions like meningitis and sepsis, critics have argued.

Follow Spring Budget announcements with Sun Online's live blog.