General Practices at the Deep End (Healthy Life Expectancy)

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 28 October 2015.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Nanette Milne Nanette Milne Conservative

I realise that this is a serious issue in Patricia Ferguson’s constituency, but the debate also gives us an opportunity to look at the wider problems associated with GP practices and patients in deprived areas. I therefore congratulate Patricia Ferguson on securing the debate.

I think that we would all agree that general practice in Scotland faces challenges ahead, with factors such as the growing shortfall in the number of GPs to look after an increasingly elderly population with complex comorbidities and the number of GPs who are set to retire in the next five years but who are unable to attract replacements. There are also many qualified GPs who are moving abroad to practise.

We start with a situation in which there is if not a crisis then a serious problem with overworked GPs and understaffed practices. It is clear that that problem is magnified in areas where there is manifest deprivation, including, as Patricia Ferguson said, places such as Possilpark and other parts of Glasgow.

The University of Glasgow’s research into general practitioners at the deep end throws up some very concerning facts and figures regarding life expectancy and the broad health and wellbeing of people in the most deprived areas of our society.

The fact that men live over 10 years less and women nearly seven years less than the Scottish average in the most deprived fifth of the population is something that needs to be addressed. We also need to address the fact that, as has already been said, in the most deprived fifth of the population, men and women spend twice as long in poor health before they die, with men facing 23 years of poor health compared with an average of nearly 13 years and women facing nearly 26 years of poor health compared with an average of 12 years.

Clearly, those statistics have a huge knock-on effect on GP services, with poor health leading to greater demands on local surgeries. However, the real problem lies in the difference between demand and unmet need. In giving evidence to the Health and Sport Committee on health inequalities, Professor Graham Watt from GPs at the deep end told us that the challenge lies in defining the extent of unmet need in the primary care system. In deprived areas, there are people with conditions—often of a specialist nature—that are not dealt with, either through individuals not seeking help or through specialist services being seen as remote.