Britain’s best known GP, the late Dr Harold Shipman was no slacker and worked all hours on behalf of the “envy of the world” that is the NHS. But a survey out today shows just how unusual such patient commitment is in Shipman’s profession.
For years we have been told that we need to pay ever more to retain and attract more greedy bastards to the world of medicine in order to provide the level of service we taxpayers all deserve. But a survey today shows that while the average GP earns more than £100,000 a year, he or she now works an average of just three and a half days (6.7 shifts as GPs term it, half days or half a shift as you and I call it) a week.
The fact that we are told we must recruit more GPs and must therefore pay even more to the troughers is thus not a function of there not being enough greedy bastards on the State payroll but a function of the ones we do have being so fucking idle.