One of the things Raven and I benefit from most is a good doctor. In fact, we have a good surgery, with several good doctors, which unfortunately is not always easy to achieve, especially as many surgeries, locally at least, do not have room for any more patients on their books. There are several qualities to being a good doctor. In the UK your first port of call is a GP (General Practitioner). They are the first person you go to with your ailments, your non-urgent wounds, your prescription medication and your general medical concerns. If you suffer from a long term health condition, then you naturally see your GP a lot, and their knowledge, experience, tact, sensitivity and bedside manner are all the more important to you. It's important to have to confidence to visit your GP whenever you have concerns about your health, safe in the knowledge that you will always been taken seriously and treated skilfully. It makes a massive difference to your quality of life to have a good and conscientious GP.

Of course, if you're a carer, the whole thing has additional implications. I've spoken before about wanting to be absolutely sure that I can have confidence in people looking after my wife, and also about the problems you can face being included as a carer, having your views listened to and being involved in care and treatment plans for the future. My wife has also given my doctor permission to discuss her medical issues with me, and he will happily talk to me confidentially when I visit him on my own, to clarify discussions that were had when I was unable to attend, such as dosage of medication, which can be problematic if I miss the appointment for the initial prescription. He also understands the impact my role has on me and my health, and is able to bear this in mind when I speak to him about myself, rather than my wife.

So the value to me of a good GP is inestimable. Which I was moved to think about amidst to events that took place this week. Our mighty political master¹ David Cameron started bleating on about having surgeries open 8am-8pm for 'hard working families'. It's important in this context to understand that in David's world there are only 'hard working families' and 'benefit scrounging criminals'. The logic of having surgeries open later for people who are at work all day is sound, although our lord and master seems to have forgotten that you are legally entitled to time off work for medical appointments within reason. I know DC doesn't like being mean to businesses (y'know, making them pay tax and stuff) but reminding them of their obligations to their staff wouldn't be a bad idea in this context. If we were all a little bit reasonable this problem would probably halve itself overnight. It would still be a problem, of course, but David's solution isn't hassle free? Where are we going to get all the extra Doctor hours from? It's not as if the doctors aren't busy during the day. And it's not as if we have a load of spare doctors kicking around. What with people having to pay for their University education and what with medical training taking quite a long time and all, we might find we're almost running a bit low. I wonder if the plan was to make all the doctors we already have work a lot harder? Of course, that will improve the service they give no end. It might, in fact, have been better if the private company asked to run the excellent 'NHS Direct' phone line hadn't thrown in the towel, if Primary Care trusts were supported rather than pilloried when they didn't perform well enough, if the idea of closing a failing hospital was regarded as insane by anyone in a position to act on it, if the NHS weren't run as if the word 'profit' should be anywhere near the thinking of people in charge of it. If you want doctors round the clock, you're going to have to make sure the whole system works so that we have enough staff and facilities to make that worthy ambition happen. Dragging out a doctor's time to cover over the cracks in the system is robbing Peter to pay Paul, and nobody wins in the long run.

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