Reading this Telegraph article quoting Anna Soubry and I’m amazed that a politician could somehow think it might be a good idea suggest that the massive contribution that females are making to the positive changes in the medical professional are being undermined because they may want to have children.
I feel that a government that wastes more than £100 Million per annum having telephone medical helplines answered by the least experienced should not be trying to blame female Doctors because NHS funding remains tied to antiquated views where all Doctor work must be done within the four walls of a clinic premises.
In 2013 Britain has a workforce of approximately 4 million who work mainly at or from home so perhaps it’s about time for the NHS to make provisions that would enable Doctors to also find employment in this way? Then instead of denigrating those who don’t find it possible to work in full-time clinic based roles we could start talking about the massive contribution that these GP’s are making to return out of hours responsibilities to GPs, supporting Patients and Carers in the community, etc, etc.
Maybe MPs should start reading the tabloid newspapers who seem to be much more aware of the value that Patients would receive if they could access the advice of home working Doctors rather than the sorry state we have today with unconnected 1990’s style call centre based models that involve untrained call handlers who are reading scripts on computers that it’s been clearly shown most Patients/Carers could quite easily use themselves…