MP "impressed" after experience shadowing at Salisbury Medical Practice
A doctor there asked him to come see what it's like
Salisbury's MP has spoken about his experience shadowing at the city's medical practice for a day.
John Glen visited Salisbury Medical Practice on January 7th after an invitation from Dr Dan Henderson to see what they do on a day to day basis.
Mr Glen says he saw "enormous patience, dedication and a passion for general practice".
He told Greatest Hits Radio:
"I get asked to do lots of things all the time in the constituency visiting businesses, charities, going to schools and last week it was a turn of me actually visiting the GP practices, Salisbury Medical Practice on Wilton Road and Dr Dan Henderson asked me to join him for a morning so I could see you know what happens, how he conducts himself and you know some of the pressures that they're under.
It gave me an opportunity to talk to him on a more extended basis about the some of the issues in general practice at the moment and what's happening in the city in terms of the provisions. So I quietly sat in the corner and observed and talked to him as well. It was hugely valuable for me as I sort of got to be the conduit between the constituency and central government in terms of funding and some of the challenges that exist and some of the good things that are happening locally."
John Glen says the main thing is that we are in need of more GPs.
He added:
"I was very impressed with Dan, who's clearly passionate about general practice and obviously very committed to his role. One of the challenges is actually working out how to prioritize different people who call up, some of them need to come in and some of them don't, and we're looking at the way he skilfully manages that list and how he works with his colleagues.
"Obviously it's a pretty sophisticated computer system. Underpinning how information is shared and dealt with, and I respect completely the confidence of everything I observed, but it's a very sophisticated and very well organized practice with a lot of demands, as you'd expect and trying to work out in the situation we're trying to minimize at the moment, with the virus, the amount of contact between people, but also trying to deliver people the immediate response to some of their health concerns. There's a bigger challenge with respect to the number of GP's and that's something I've been aware of for a few years now and spoken to other GPS in the past and so we discussed that too."