A Letter to Professor Steve Field
14th December 2015 Dear Professor Field I noticed the Daily Mail printed your latest comments on a Monday – what is usually a crushingly busy day of the week for UK GPs. I am not sure if you work as a GP on a Monday but if you did you would see what pressure GPs and their staff work under due to the failings of those working from comfortable offices in London – politicians and senior managers like yourself. The commen t that hit the headlines was that ‘GPs have failed as a profession’ and you were 'ashamed to be a GP'. My jaw dropped when I read this. I just couldn’t believe someone who had once led the profession as Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners could say this. I had to read it again for it to sink in properly. UK GPs saw this comment you made and their morale sank even lower than the subterranean depths it is now at. As they battled with their 12-14 hour day seeing around 60-70 patients or more they wondered why you were beating them with a