GP crisis
BMA calls for urgent meeting with health secretary
Richard Vautrey, chair of the BMA’s general practitioners committee, wrote to England’s health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, calling for an urgent meeting to discuss the pressures on general practice and warning that practices could be forced to close to new patients. The move follows Hunt’s speech at the Conservative conference, which the BMA criticised for offering no immediate, practical solutions to problems such as patient demand and staff shortages. Vautrey wrote, “With unprecedented patient demand, a recruitment and retention crisis, huge workforce shortfalls and major premises problems, it is no wonder that GPs are having…