General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

SIR – The concept of GPs having their own patients (Leading Article, November 30) – as envisaged by Nye Bevan – was destroyed in 2004, when NHS contracts were shifted from individual doctors to practices.

Before that, a named doctor had cradle-to-grave responsibility for named patients. The doctor was the general practitioner; now it is a general practice that handles those who manage to get through the door. Often the care itself is carried out by locums.

The dissatisfaction, among both patients and doctors, with poor continuity of care and idiosyncratic use of remote consultations could be addressed if the Government reverted to the clinical relationships of 1948, revoking Tony Blair’s reforms and restoring the concept of the family doctor.

Dr Andy Ashworth MRCGP
Bo’ness, West Lothian