Shrewsbury health hub: Doctor left practice due to 'unsafe' workload, GP says

That's the view of Dr Carla Ingram from Marden Medical Practice in Sutton Farm, who said her colleagues were working from cramped rooms and that one GP from the practice recently left because their workload "no longer feels safe, manageable or sustainable".

The proposed Shrewsbury Health and Wellbeing Hub would involve closing down six surgeries in the town and moving them into one building. The plan has been met with criticism and concern over patients travelling longer distances, a lack of current public transport links and access to the same GPs on a regular basis.

She said in the last 10 years, patient numbers have gone up from 6,500 to 10,000 - with a 1,000-patient increase since February 2021.

“I completely understand reservations about the idea of changing the fundamental model of how General Practice has always been delivered," she said. "I signed up for the very role of ‘family doctor’ that many are concerned will become extinct if the proposed health and wellbeing hub goes ahead and we move out of this premises.

“But the job description of being a GP has changed beyond recognition since this practice was established, and never more so than over the last five years.

“At Marden, over the last five years there has been a 33 per cent increase in the average number of face-to-face appointments we are providing each day. But there has also been a 65 per cent increase in the demand for telephone and remote electronic consultations.

"Many patients have embraced the convenience that this style of consulting gives them, and so this is additional work we are doing over and above our face-to-face appointments.

“As a nation we are living longer and so there is an increase in the complexity of managing an older population with multiple conditions, many of whom are continuing to live in socially precarious circumstances in their own homes and requiring frequent input from other agencies.

“We are trying to provide this greater breadth and volume of care with dwindling numbers of GPs, because both recruitment and retention of doctors in General Practice is decreasing year on year.

“Sadly, this has been reflected at Marden only this year with the loss of an exceptional GP Partner, who has decided to take a complete, and possibly permanent, career break from General Practice altogether.

“This situation isn’t unique to Marden; these issues are being replicated across Shropshire and across the country as a whole."

She said that the practice chose to be part of the health hub scheme, and that it "wasn't forced" on its GPs.

Dr Ingram also said the practice needs more staff but does not have the space at its current premises.

“Our admin team are already working from cramped first and second floor rooms accessed via a narrow staircase," she continued.

"Recently, a member of our reception team wasn’t able to return to work following an operation because she couldn’t climb the stairs on her crutches, which resulted in one fewer person answering the phones at 8am to book appointments. Several members of the team were working in temperatures of up to 40 degrees in the heatwave this summer.

“A purpose-built health care facility would enable us to recruit and accommodate all the clinicians and support staff needed to meet the future health needs of our patients.

“And most importantly, it may help to entice newly-qualified doctors into applying and training for a career in General Practice and to prevent any more excellent GPs from leaving the profession in the middle of their career, because their workload no longer feels safe, manageable or sustainable,

“I want to remain a ‘family doctor’. I want to be able to continue to do the job I fell in love with and trained to do 21 years ago. But if the role of the ‘family doctor’ is to survive then we need to find a new way of working. And that’s what I believe the proposed Shrewsbury Health and Wellbeing Hub would offer.”