As those involved continue to investigate all the options and to grapple with the implications of the Royal College of Physicians report on the future of services at West Cornwall Hospital, another issue is emerging – the part to be played by our local G.P.s in the running of the hospital. At present, when patients are admitted to West Cornwall Hospital, they are cared for by a team of hospital staff, Consultants, doctors and nurses. However, the RCP report envisages that “many of the medical admissions will be under the care of General Practitioners”. This would be a very radical change of emphasis. There are G.P. beds in some smaller hospitals, such as Helston and Edward Hain at St Ives, but West Cornwall Hospital with nearer 100 beds is a very different proposition. The report goes on to state that, among G.P.s “…it would seem likely that there would be enthusiasm to work in this way and to take on the responsibility of improving patient care……”
However, evidence gathered locally does not support this assumption. On the contrary, we are increasingly aware that local G.P.s would not wish to take on the burdensome responsibility of caring for patients in hospital alongside all their other work in the surgery and the community. They would, admittedly, be paid handsomely for the work – and would come more expensive that the junior hospital staff currently employed in this capacity – but some have told us that they would simply not have the time to do the work. Neither would it be a simple matter of employing more G.P.s since there are funding limitations on their recruitment.
We in 
would be glad to know where the G.P.s are who would be happy to run West Cornwall
Hospital if the changes suggested by the RCP were implemented. Without the assurance
that local G.P.s would come to the rescue once training posts were withdrawn,
we are unsure and a little concerned about just who would be left to do the
doctoring. Perhaps readers would like to ask their G.P.s?