General practice in Wales could move from “the ITU to critical care” following a series of deals with the governments, a conference was told at the weekend.

But a senior GP criticised Welsh politicians for claiming this meant there were no problems.

The Welsh public deserve the truth about the strain facing GPs, according to Dr Charlotte Jones, chair of the British Medical Association’s GP committee in Wales.

Dr Jones welcomed a two year contract which seeks to reduce bureaucracy – and puts extra funding of £50 million a year into general practice.

Speaking to the GP committee’s annual conference, she said practices in Wales also had the advantage of an inspection system far removed from the “witch hunt” of the English Care Quality Commission.

But, she said, there were still major problems with recruiting GPs together with problems of growing numbers of retirements.

And general practice has become he “dumping ground” for all sorts of problems, many of them not medical, she said. Demand for consultations had increased by 20% since 2008.

She set out a series of measures to reduce patients being sent back to GPs – such as annual budgets for patients needing gluten-free products and out-patient clinics being able to prescribe and issue fit notes.

And she set out measures to improve resources available for practices, calling for all practices to have clinical pharmacists and for “parachute teams” to help practices in difficulty.

She said: “Patients understand the challenges we face and it is wrong that some in Government and Health Boards deliberately mislead the public about the reality of the dire situation in some parts of Wales which, without swift intervention could rapidly turn into a disastrous collapse of services resulting in increased waits for patients and reduced services available to them close to their home.”

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