General Practice in Crisis
As your local GPs we are sadly aware that our patients are finding it increasingly difficult to access
appointments and services that you have come to expect from us.
This is frustrating for us and we would like to take this opportunity to share with you the reasons for the
current situation and assure you that we are trying very hard to make sure you receive the best possible care.
As you will have heard in national and local headlines, the NHS is under significant pressure; health services
are seeing more patients than ever before, people are living longer with more complex health needs and
there are severe financial challenges.  Over recent years the investment in General Practice has reduced,
whilst at the same time the workload has risen dramatically. This has now been recognised by NHS England
and plans are being made to increase investment in the next 5 years.
Sadly, recruitment of GPs and nurses remains a big problem.  Many young doctors do not now want to work in
GP surgeries with the pressures of current working practices and the appeal of places like Canada and
Australia mean that they don’t want to take over from local doctors across the country when they retire.
Despite the pressures we remain committed to providing you with the best possible service and are working
well together to share ideas and to try different ways of working.

We have also diversified our team by taking
on two Nurse Practitioners; many of you may have already been looked after by Alex and we have another
Nurse Practitioner joining us in September.
We all want the NHS to continue and we are working hard to make sure this happens. Please try to work with
us and help us – the NHS is there for us all to use responsibly.  Please think about where you can get the most
appropriate help; we have good pharmacies across the town and they can provide advice, support and over
the counter treatments to help you to look after yourself confidently.

Last Updated on September 15, 2016 by Emsworth Surgery