Martin Marshall: defending general practice

from GP Frontline: Autumn 2021

GP Lives: Social Media Medic

You can’t fail to have noticed that the profession has been in the full glare of media scrutiny for quite a while now. From tabloid to broadsheet, radio to television, nationally and regionally, critical articles detailing the ‘negative experiences’ faced by patients when trying to get face to face GP appointments have been everywhere.

There’ve been numerous times in the past when GPs have unwittingly become the target of media criticism, but the recent onslaught is the worst I can remember in over 30 years of being a GP. All this vitriol for following government guidelines and trying to keep patients, and our practice teams, safe.

As well as being offensive and inaccurate, it is also irresponsible as it poisons the relationship that GPs have with their patients and undermines the trust and confidence they have in us.

You need to be pretty thick-skinned to be a GP, but these almost daily attacks on our professionalism, commitment and integrity are demoralising and wear you down. Some colleagues have described it as a ‘war of attrition’ and, after 18 months on the frontline of a pandemic, they simply haven’t got the energy to fight back. Nor do demoralised and exhausted GPs have the luxury of newspaper columns where they can vent.

These sustained and unwarranted attacks have sent the College into full-on rebuttal mode and we are waging a daily battle to robustly challenge the succession of anti-GP stories. We have adopted stronger language in our media statements and are creating an ongoing narrative on our website and on social media to show what we are doing to defend the profession.

Despite the negative tone of the coverage, our statements are getting a good showing in all the nationals – including, rather ironically, the Daily Mail which launched a whole front-page campaign on the issue but still made one of our responses its ‘letter of the day’. We’ve had a good track record of having our statements and letters printed (see selection at the end of this page), refuting the outrageous claims made by its columnists. Our response to one particularly malicious invective received nearly 1000 ‘likes’ on Twitter – as did our riposte to Jacob Rees-Mogg's divisive and untrue comments in the House of Commons. Thanks also to those members who have written their own letters and contacted their local TV and radio stations to put across their very powerful side of the story.

**Martin Marshall: 'letter of the day' in the Daily Mail**

The College Officers are also making time to appear on more ‘populist’ broadcast such as Good Morning Britain and regional TV stations to get our messages across to patients. I have appeared on both Radio 4’s Today and PM programmes and recently featured in an ITV Tonight programme highlighting the pressures that GPs are under.

I need to emphasise that not all sections of the media have waded into the affray – some titles and journalists have actually been very supportive of general practice. The trade press have picked up on the action we are taking to fight back against the criticism and Pulse and GPonline have both featured positive stories on how the College and BMA are taking the media to task. I have also had robust opinion pieces printed in the Daily Express, Daily Mirror, the i, Independent, HSJ and BMJ looking at the impact of media criticism on GP morale and the serious consequences this could have.

Of course, whatever we say and however hard we work will never be enough to combat or outweigh the sheer force of negativity currently coming our way – and unfortunately, the patients who have benefited from remote consultations or seen their GP face to face during the pandemic are not telling the media about it.

Tempting as it is to come out ‘all guns blazing’, we must remain measured and must always be seen as the patients’ advocate if we are to get the public, press and politicians back on side.

However, that does not stop us being incensed by the reprehensible allegations being levelled against us. As well as being described as ‘lazy’, ‘idle’ and denying patients appointments so that we can ‘play golf’, we have been accused of not giving our patients the same level of care that vets give to animals and of ‘costing lives’ by seeing patients remotely.

While journalists and columnists are portraying themselves as the patients’ champion, they need to realise that these relentless attacks can have a much deeper impact. They can demoralise GPs to the point that they dread going to work or hasten their decision to leave the profession. At the other end of the scale, medical students are put off from choosing general practice – with serious consequences for patient care in the future – and those who do, often find themselves being denigrated and treated as ‘lesser’ medics by their peers.

The real issue is that we are now seeing the fallout of over a decade of under investment in our service. Successive governments have allowed GP numbers to fall while volume and complexity of patient demand has risen and continues to do so. GPs have long been criticised for working ‘part time’ when, in reality and as we all know, the job of a modern GP to provide safe, effective and personalised care for patients is becoming increasingly undoable.

The solution is for the four governments of the UK to invest in general practice, including thousands more GPs and members of the wider practice team. We also need initiatives to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for existing GPs to prevent burnout or their leaving the profession.

The College will continue to challenge unfair criticism of hardworking GPs in the media and elsewhere – and continue our calls on governments to support general practice so that GPs can give patients the safe care they need.

But the media should also play its part by showing more responsibility and campaigning for general practice, rather than denigrating hardworking GPs for trying to do their jobs in very difficult circumstances. •