More community care key to success

COMMUNITY care has been a key aim since a landmark 2008 review of the health service by Lord Ara Darzi.

- BY MARTIN BAGOT

However, David Cameron's Tory Party came to power from 2010 and implemented a record NHS funding squeeze. NHS services got steadily worse, resulting in more people attending A&E.

The NHS system kept diverting more funding to hospitals to avert a growing A&E crisis that was clearly costing lives. This meant there was less the NHS could spend on primary care keeping people out of hospital, resulting in ever-worsening pressures on A&Es that continue to this day.

All this came at the same time as an exodus of senior GPs and increasingly unmanageable workloads for those who remained in the NHS. It became harder and harder to get a GP appointment.