Allison Pearson GP Smear WRONG

Possibly emboldened by press non-regulator IPSO wiping the arse of the Murdoch press by waving away a justifiable complaint about pundit Matthew Parris recently demonising the GRT community, on the basis that it’s only an opinion column, and no individual was named in the attack - aka the Islamophobia Get-Out Clause - the seriously wayward Allison Pearson has gone after GPs, in a similar lack of style.

Writing in the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, she has told readers “GPs are improving their work-life balance while worsening the life-death balance of everyone else”. Pejorative and prejudicial, much? The sub-heading is in the same vein. "Distress at being unable to see a doctor in person has hardened into cynicism - it's no wonder long-suffering patients are losing it”. And there was more. Rather a lot more.

“There is mounting anger that a highly-rewarded, once highly-respected profession continues to insist that it is ‘fully open’ when personal experience suggests it is hiding behind an increasingly threadbare Covid sofa. I was sorry, but not at all surprised, to read that GP practices are facing a ‘torrent of abuse’ as patient frustration boils over”.

And whose fault might that be? As if you need to ask. “How about the doctors’ union tries being ‘kind and considerate’ to patients by not insisting on strict Covid measures (more unnecessary by the day) which supposedly keep their members ‘safe’ while jeopardising the health of the population. As long as social distancing is maintained in surgery waiting rooms, there will be no return to normal face-to-face service. I’m sorry to say, that seems to suit a lot of GPs just fine”. A big bad UNION did it! Boo big bad UNIONS!!

Go on. “The shameless British Medical Association sought to obscure its role in the crisis … But who is backing those GPs who don’t want to return to normal working because - unlike shopworkers, waiters, district nurses and delivery drivers - they are at risk from a fast-receding virus? That would be the BMA, which demands yet more funding from the Government for GPs who prefer not to see the men and women who pay their salaries”.

The BMA has pointed out “To suggest that family doctors have seen their work-life balance improve during the pandemic and attempt to justify the abuse directed at them and their colleagues serves no good purpose … the number of patients per practice is 22% higher than it was six years ago, leading GPs to report working an average of 11-hour days. These are not figures that show a better work-life balance for the family doctor”.

There is more. “The article also talks of ‘unnecessary’ Covid measures. There is nothing unnecessary about practical steps such as physical distancing, mask wearing and hand hygiene which keep patients and staff safe. Indeed a recent BMA survey of the public found that a majority support these steps … to keep blaming individual GPs and their colleagues for this - and using it to defend abuse - is completely unfair”.

This is bang out of order, but Ms Pearson knows that she will experience no pushback from her paper, or indeed from IPSO. The Tel does not have to be fair. It will get away with attacks on groups. Ms Pearson may even be thrown a few biscuits for her shameless and unhinged union bashing. While giving the green light for more abuse of GPs.

Allison Pearson is not only beyond Barking, she’s plain flat wrong. No change there.

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