大象传媒

As the NHS faces another winter of staff shortages and critically high demand, the Generation Gap looks at the role of the GP through two doctors at a Tunbridge Wells practice.

In the front line of increasing demands on the health service through primary care, newly qualified 32 year old GP Dr Seema Malvankar is about to return to her job after maternity leave, while GP Dr Tony Buckland has a specialist role at the practice in skin surgery. He treats everything from cysts to certain skin cancers to save both his own NHS patients, and others from neighbouring practices, having to join long waiting lists for hospital treatment.

Even though many GPs are retiring early in their 50s, Dr Buckland, who is nearly 70 and a partner in the practice, has put off retirement to continue working for the NHS, albeit part-time.

Meanwhile Dr Malvankar, who wanted to follow in her GP father鈥檚 footsteps after he died when she was nine, is returning to two days a week as a salaried doctor . She joins the many part-time GPs who keep the NHS going.

How different is it for her starting out in a world of telephone/zoom appointments, e-consults, targets and paperwork, older patients with a multitude of health issues, long waiting lists and the possibility of mega-hubs swallowing up small practices.

For Dr Buckland the hours were longer when he began as a GP in 1980 with on-call nights and weekends, but the rewards were close ongoing relationships with patients and the community, often from cradle to grave.

Series Producer: Sara Parker
Sound Mixer: Tom Brignell
Executive Producer: Samir Shah

A Juniper Connect production for 大象传媒 Radio 4