Rising demand on “health services”, year by year increases in prescribing and steadily increasing numbers of people with chronic conditions, indicates we are not delivering a sustainable form of health care.
One other indicator of that is the number of doctors taking early retirement, and now, figures showing drops in GP numbers.
The government is facing a GP recruitment crisis with new figures showing a fall in the number of family doctors since the coalition came to power amid warnings that the take-up of training places is the worst since 2007. Official data analysed by the House of Commons Library shows that at a time of ever increasing demand for their services, the number of GPs has dropped by 356 compared with its level in 2009/10. The proportion of family doctors serving every 100,000 people has also dropped, from 70 in 2009/10 to 66.5 now. At the same time, GP leaders have raised serious concerns about what they say are the “worst ever” figures on GP training, with the take-up of places having fallen to 62% of those available in the East Midlands and little over 70% in large parts of the north of England.
I don’t think its only the system of health care which is unsustainable…..Picketty’s economic analysis shows us we don’t have a sustainable global economy either. (And still we hear politicians in countries across the world claim that “growth” is the answer – but growth of what, and how do we get sustainable growth in a finite planet?)
Heroes Not Zombies 
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