"We are already working way beyond capacity. People are burnt out," says one GP, at the start of a long day on the frontline.
"There aren’t even vaccine supplies, at times, when we have decided we’ve wanted to vaccinate.
"Where is all this extra manpower and reserves going to come from? Because general practice is broken."
GPs are crying out for help after many say they discovered that they would be rolling out the Covid-19 booster programme when Boris Johnson told the rest of the nation of his plan.
The Prime Minister gave a televised address on Sunday evening, December 12, setting a deadline of December 31 for all adults over the age of 18 to have had the offer of the vaccine.
Several GPs have told the Manchester Evening News of the crisis now unfolding within general practice, as staff scramble with 'no notice' to figure out how to achieve the 'mammoth ask' during the 'busiest time of year for GP surgeries'.
GPs say they face cancelling 'all their routine work', as well as staff exhaustion, for a goal that 'feels unachievable'.
Dr Siobhan Brennan - a GP partner at Stockport LMC - shared her first-hand account with the M.E.N. of the day after her profession discovered, when the rest of the country did, that they would be leading the colossal booster effort.
It’s Monday morning, 8.30...
The phones are turned on now in our GP practice.
And in light of Boris’ announcement, I suspect we’re going to have a very, very bad day at work.
The announcement yesterday evening that there is an expectation that GPs would provide, at least, 20 million vaccines in the next two weeks - because that’s really what it is including bank holidays - put the absolute fear in me, and certainly I expect many of my colleagues.
It feels unachievable.
We are already working way beyond capacity. People are burnt out.
There aren’t even vaccine supplies, at times, when we have decided we’ve wanted to vaccinate.
Where is all this extra manpower and reserves going to come from? Because general practice is broken.
I don’t really know what else to say.
It’s the end of the day…
It went slightly better than expected but I think that’s because several of us worked last night, immediately after the government announcement to get information out to our patients on the website and social media channels. Which we then updated constantly today in addition to doing all our routine work and all the urgent, on-the-day work.
I’m still confused, along with many of my colleagues, as to how this is going to play out because we’re being told to prioritise the vaccine delivery over non-urgent medical care that a GP would normally provide.
But everything that we deal with, most days, is seen as an emergency in some way, shape or form.
So I’m not quite sure how we’re going to do this.
I listened to a webinar this afternoon and I still feel really confused and very anxious about whether I’m going to have a day off at Christmas, which I’ve been looking forward to.
I’m worried for my colleagues, worried for our community if we all burn out as GPs.
Don’t really know what else to say again… it’s not great.
In a letter to the Royal College of General Practitioners sent out to doctors, shared with the M.E.N. last night, Professor Martin Marshall, RCGP Chair, and Professor Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England, set out the reasons for the booster push - warning of the Omicron spread among young adults.
They have written that 'the wave will be much larger in two to three weeks, and if it runs through an upboosted population the subsequent avoidable impact on the NHS, and almost certainly on severe disease and mortality will be significant'.
'The NHS will then be hit with a large wave of patients at the worst time of the year, and at a point it is likely many colleagues will be ill, isolating or caring for family members due to the size of the wave.'
The Department of Health and Social Care has been contacted for comment.
