As a born again advisor and former Labour secretary of state Patricia Hewitt brings a track record of destruction and despair.
Notably her "nationalisation" of out of hours GP services, followed by repeated cutbacks in the name of efficiency is largely the cause of the mess emergency care is in now. The well-functioning, self-financing GP co-ops, as welcome relief from shorter duty rotas within the 24 hour contract, reaped great benefits for patient care and cost effectiveness.
Primary care included palliative care and recognising and supporting end of life care with a timely response in a crisis. Also we did triage for hospital admission to the right place avoiding the bottleneck also known as A&E. And of course GPs could and did provide "conventional" primary care for those who could not (and often should not) wait for the next surgery session.
So with this track record, why is she back advising the Conservatives?
Rapid Response:
Re: Patricia Hewitt’s record is quite bad.
Dear Editor
As a born again advisor and former Labour secretary of state Patricia Hewitt brings a track record of destruction and despair.
Notably her "nationalisation" of out of hours GP services, followed by repeated cutbacks in the name of efficiency is largely the cause of the mess emergency care is in now. The well-functioning, self-financing GP co-ops, as welcome relief from shorter duty rotas within the 24 hour contract, reaped great benefits for patient care and cost effectiveness.
Primary care included palliative care and recognising and supporting end of life care with a timely response in a crisis. Also we did triage for hospital admission to the right place avoiding the bottleneck also known as A&E. And of course GPs could and did provide "conventional" primary care for those who could not (and often should not) wait for the next surgery session.
So with this track record, why is she back advising the Conservatives?
Competing interests: No competing interests