Having heard how a certain former Secretary of State for Health has given up his work responsibilities in order to take part in a TV programme, I thought I’d bring to your attention something I saw being advertised in the most recent edition of my television listings magazine. Here’s what was written:
‘This week sees the start of a new series of the long running survival reality show, ‘I’m a GP…Get me out of here!’ in which a group of family doctors are taken out of their comfort zone and dumped in the middle of a sometimes dangerous NHS where, in order to survive, they are forced to undertake a number of unpleasant tasks many of which leave an unpleasant taste in the mouth.
‘It’s a jungle out there’, said one of this years contestants after being asked to manage the ever more complex medical needs of an ailing population without the usual support of a fully functional health service. Other tasks the contestants will have to face include coping with the vagaries of ambulance response times, negotiating with those in political power, some of whom bite, and fending off the all too frequent attacks of a hostile press.
Each week will see a number of doctors leaving the profession until eventually there’ll be just one left to provide primary health care services for the whole nation.
This series, which is set to be the last, is expected to run until the middle of next month. The show airs daily and can be watched at medical centres up and down the country.’
Anyone interested? I thought not.
Related blogs regarding the difficulties with the NHS:
To read ‘On being overwhelmed’, click here
To read ‘I’ll miss this when we’re gone’, click here
To read ‘General Practice – still a sweet sorrow’, click here
To read ‘General Practice – is time running out?’, click here
Other tales of former Secretaries of State for Health’
To read ‘GPs are responsible – it’s time they went’, lick here
To read ‘At last…an explanation’, click here
To read ‘The Three Little GPs and the Big Bad Secretary of State for Health’, click here
And some more unlikely stories of GP life:
To read ‘Dr Jonathan Harker and the post evening surgery home visit’, click here
To read ‘Mr Benn – the GP’, click here
To read ‘A GP called Paddington’, click here
To read ‘Scooby Doo and the Deserted Medical Centre’, click here
To read ‘Bagpuss and the NHS’, click here
To read ‘A Dream of an Antiques Roadshow’, click here
To read ‘The NHS Emporium’, click here
To read ‘Mr McGregor’s Revenge – A Tale of Peter Rabbit’, click here
To read ‘Jeepy Leepy and the NHS’, click here
To read ‘Dr Wordle and the Mystery Diagnosis’, click here
To read ‘The Happy Practice – A Cautionary Tale’, click here
To read ‘The Scrooge Chronicles’, click here
To read ‘Jeeves and the Hormone Deficiency’, click here
To read ‘General Practices are Go!’, click here
To read ‘A Mission Impossible’, click here
To read ‘A Grimm Tale’, click here
To read ‘The General Practitioner – Endangered’, click here
To read ‘The State of Disrepair Shop’, click here
Some musings 
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