Putting GPs in charge...

[Delilah]

Anyone read this yet?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/04/midwives-nhs-shakeup

[Delilah]

What concerns me is that GPs are potentially going to be in charge of maternity funding, they have limited knowledge of maternity and are still aggrieved in some cases, that they don't have to see women when they are pregnant, so subsequently no longer get their 'payment'.

I am also assuming that if my experience with 70-80% of doctors is anti home birth, then it will not be encouraged, indeed presuming that how many Drs wives have gone through the system with an elective CS?

I can only hope i'm wrong.

[HazelB]

Total and utter disaster, the NHS is surely going to be utterly destroyed under our new s*itty government.....

(Okay truth is I dont know enough about the tories and the NHS but im a parent of disabled child and the funding etc being removed from services/respite/education is just SHOCKING, so yeah I hate them and Im biased...just ignore me )

[Delilah]

I'm also a parent of a disabled child, so I am also biased, I am now however really beginning to fear for women and their families.

[Raven]

I totally agree with everything that's been posted.

I think GPs in charge of maternity care would be a complete disaster. Personally, I see midwives as the gate-keepers of maternity care so I think they are the ones who should control the funding.

[Mama]

ABSOLUTE DISASTER IN MY OPINION!!!!

As some of you know, I've had Hyperemisis throughout this pregnancy, I was TOLD by my GP- " There's nothing more I can do to help you , other than suggest a termination"

I replied: " I really want this baby,, I'm just being sick so much that I feel terrible " ( was being sick upto 40 times a day)

To which she replied : " Well if your that unhappy, I think a termination would be best"

---- I then left.... this is a GP who only prescibed me Avomine and Cyclezine.... ( KNOWING there were other meds out there... )

She also sent me home from the surgery, having said she thought I had a Pulminary Embolism, Blood clot in the lung ( which it turned out I had two clots) when she should have sent me straight to the hospital.

If ALL midwifery care was put in charge of GP's , I dread to think what else would have happened to me... saying that, i am BLESSED with a great Independent Midwife, so I spose it wouldn't have been so bad... I feel for those though who want a IM but can't afford it.

[Mama]

Also-

am i missing something here, but for example:

If you had reduced fetal movements, would you go to your GP, instead of Hospital?

[MrsBanks]

I think I am missing something. My understanding was that GP consortiums would be put in charge of allocating funds for various health services. So they would allocate an amount for maternity in hospitals and pregnancy care would continue as it currently does. Or is the fear that they would stipulate they have greater control over pregnancy care?

[RubyRouge]

My community midwives where I am on placement at the moment are worried that their community roles will be brought in house to the GP surgeries, and that they may lose their jobs and if they are retained, that the jobs will change so much as a result.

My main concern is that on a basic level, for GP's and medical staff, their main area of training and responsibility is treating patients. Not managing loads of cash.. Sorry but I just don't see how we are putting this on GP's shoulders? They aren't economists or strategists used to dealing with this, and do they even want to? I also worry that GP's may have areas of preference and that money may be unequally divided between all the necessary areas and this may add to the 'post code lottery' issue.

*I haven't spoken to or know any GP's so this is very much my opinion :).

Personally as a Student Midwife, there's just so much up in the air and I just can't wait to qualify and get outta here! Was my plan before all this happened anyway, but it's just reconfirming to me the state of the UK Health system and the fact that I don't want to be a part of it, even though I quite like the model. The understaffing and all this NHS reforming is just too much.