RCGP Chair's Column

Welcome to GP Frontline by RCGP Chair Professor Martin Marshall

It’s hard to believe that this will be my last GP Frontline column as your Chair. With November fast approaching, I will soon be passing over to my successor, the brilliant Kamila Hawthorne.

I was clear what I wanted to achieve for the College when I took on the role in November 2019, with my priorities of making the job of a GP ‘do-able’ again, highlighting the importance of having time to build trusting relationships with our patients, and supporting practices to adapt to new ways of working.

We all know what happened next and we have worked and lived through the toughest time in general practice and the wider health service since the NHS was established in 1948.

Escalating workload and GP shortages were taking their toll even before the pandemic, and these pressures have only worsened. We are now grappling with additional responsibilities resulting from Covid, including managing ‘long Covid’ cases in the community and the care of those patients who are bearing the brunt of NHS backlogs, with long waiting times for operations and specialist treatments. Patients are also increasingly turning to us for support with the cost of living crisis, so there are even bigger challenges ahead.

In spite of everything, you and your teams continue to give your very best in the most difficult of circumstances – and even in the face of the totally unacceptable media and political criticism that’s been levelled at us so frequently of late.

I’ll say yet again that the way in which you adapted to new ways of

working, in particular maximising the potential of new technologies, right from the start of the pandemic was remarkable – as is the care that you deliver to millions of patients, day in and day out.

There is still so much to be proud of as our specialty evolves and adapts to working at larger scale and with multidisciplinary teams, and we must never lose sight of this.

Ever the optimist, I’m confident that common sense has to prevail and that the true value of general practice will be recognised – by politicians and policy-makers, and, most importantly, by our patients and the public who remain our most powerful advocates.

GPs deserve to work in a service that is appropriately funded and supported and your College will continue to fight for this (see p7).

I know I’m biased but it’s my view that GPs are the NHS’s biggest asset and being your Chair for the past three years has been the most enormous privilege.

Thank you for allowing me that privilege, and for the work you do for patients, our College, and our profession.

Goodbye, good luck and take care.

Martin Marshall