Join the Queue: Starmer’s New NHS Fix and the Art of Standing About
Forget hospital waiting lists — Labour’s bright idea is to shove millions more patients into your GP’s locked waiting room. Bring snacks, a chair and saint-like patience. You’ll need all three.
Some people collect stamps. Others press flowers. Me? I seem to collect waiting times. If there’s a queue, I’ll find it, join it and write a column about it before I reach the front. So, you can imagine my delight when I discovered Sir Keir Starmer and his band of political magicians have decided to tackle the NHS crisis by gifting us more queues; this time at the local GP’s surgery.
I wish I was surprised. But I’ve spent enough mornings glued to a squealing phone, listening to hold music that sounds suspiciously like someone torturing a Casio keyboard, to know better.
Just last week I rang my doctors surgery, naively hoping to book a simple check-up. After forty-seven minutes on hold, roughly the same time it takes to get halfway round IKEA after finding a parking space; I was told I’d be lucky to be seen before my next birthday. Not this year’s birthday. Next year’s. Possibly by a locum who might or might not still be working there by then.
Now apparently, this same GP, who can’t currently squeeze in my mildly suspicious mole before the next leap year; is going to absorb millions more patients like a sponge that’s already been left under the sink since 1983.
So, the government’s cunning plan to slash hospital waiting lists is to tear up the old system, shift routine appointments to community care and transform your local GP into a medical Swiss Army knife. Need a routine scan? Ask your GP. Dodgy knee? See your GP. Crumbling sanity from dealing with all this? Guess who you’ll need an appointment with.
Of course first you’ll need to get through the door. Which is adorable, because the door is usually locked. When you ring the bell, a faint voice explains the practice is terribly busy and could you please try the app instead? The app, incidentally, crashes so often it should really come with its own paramedic.
Streeting and Starmer reckon this GP-centric fantasyland will magic away the 7.4 million people currently loitering on hospital lists like customers in a Post Office queue that extends past Greggs, then loops back inside for warmth.
In this sunlit future, we’ll also be monitored by wearable tech. Apparently, my smartwatch will alert the GP to my impending cardiac arrest before I even finish my morning croissant. Terrific. I look forward to seeing how that works the next time my GP’s internet cuts out because Derek from IT decided to reboot the router at lunchtime.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for innovation. I adore the idea of technology smoothing the lumps out of my medical life. But suggesting that chucking more work at GPs will miraculously unclog hospitals, is like asking the man handing out tickets at the Alton Towers theme park to also fix the rollercoaster while keeping the kids entertained with balloon animals.
Naturally, there’s money attached. A meaty £29 billion to recruit thousands more GPs and sprinkle fairy dust over this neighbourhood health dream. Which is sweet, assuming we can conjure up these new doctors from somewhere…
If this all sounds suspiciously like a plan drawn up on the back of a greasy napkin at 2am after one too many pints, that’s because it probably is. Meanwhile, the rest of us will keep doing what we’ve always done… queue up politely, compare ailments with strangers and mutter about politicians who promise faster service while we edge half a centimetre closer to the counter every twenty minutes.
So here’s my empowered nudge to you, dear reader. If you’re feeling under the weather, you might want to pencil in a consultation now. Pop the kettle on, pack a snack and find a comfortable chair. Because when Starmer’s queue to the GP stretches round the block like the queue for McDonalds in a university, you’ll want to be first in line.
See you there… I’ll be the one two spots ahead, reading a book about how to cure impatience. If the NHS can’t help us, maybe that will.
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Chris Geiger, Author of The Cancer Survivors Club.
Daily Dose of Disbelief!
Bsky: @chrisgeiger.com
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