GPs are getting more money for a service which is getting worse - it’s enough to make you sick, says Mark Dolan

This will give you a high temperature and make you cough - with millions of BRITs around the country struggling to secure a doctor's appointment,

The telegraph are today reporting that GPs in England have secured an unprecedented 17% pay rise. GP partners – who make up the majority of family doctors – saw average incomes rise by £20,000 to £142 grand, in the 12 months, after the first lockdown.

The 17 per cent rise, the largest on record, came as the NHS moved to a system of “total triage”, with patients refused GP appointments in person, unless they had a telephone consultation first. Good luck getting one of those.

A 17% pay rise. So much, for WAGE restraint, at a time, of spiralling inflation. This is quite a bonanza for GPs who in too many cases closed their doors, over the last two and a half years, in their total, and in my view misguided obsession with Covid.

Remember, the national health service, became the national Covid service. And the consequence of emptying their waiting rooms, and cancelling so-called non-urgent appointments?

A waiting list of potentially 12 million people. And much worse diseases – cancer, type two diabetes, dementia – if you ask me, with a survival rate of over 99%, almost anything, was worse than Covid. Policy suggested otherwise. The most egregious example of this, is the backlog, in cancer treatment.

We know the key to cancer, is catching it early, but now for example, a young mother, must say goodbye, to her husband, and small children, after failing to get an appointment with her GP, to have that lump investigated.

Well done everyone. Countless viewers to this show, have emailed me about THEIR struggles, during the pandemic, and SINCE, to get a GP appointment. And the GPs reward? Thousands of pounds more a year.

If I’d run a GP practice, I would've kept my doors open, seven days a week. Of course, the meddling health authorities, would have stopped me. What a shame. There are plenty of great, general practitioners out there, but the NHS is collapsing, under the weight of its own disastrous policies, like spending thousands on woke diversity courses, ironically for the most diverse health service on the planet.

Like spending thousands on rainbow zebra crossings in front of hospitals, which achieve little, except to confuse, GUIDE dogs. They spend millions, on unaccountable middle managers, on six-figure salaries and now, they reward, the worst performing part of our crumbling health service – general practice.

Consultants and frontline medics in the UK, are world-class, whatever your illness. Once you get treatment in the NHS, it’s usually brilliant. But it starts, with a GP appointment. And all too often, the doctor, will NOT see you now.

Did you know, the health service, works out at a cost of £10,000, for every household, every year. Ten grand per household, annually. For that, we should be able to call our GP in the morning and get an appointment later that day. Like we used to.

Not be told to call back later, hope for a cancellation or wait two, or three, or four weeks, for an appointment. GP surgeries make the customer service at Ryanair, look positively streamlined and efficient. Our NHS, which boasts the best frontline professionals anywhere, was looking pale by comparison to other health systems, BEFORE the pandemic.

Post Covid, the NHS is about ready, for its post-mortem. Our NHS has gone from being loved to being resented, as families watch their friends and relatives, suffer or die, because of a failing system. And it's not about money. Ten thousand pounds a year, per household. Give us half that money, and we’ll sort medical provision, for ourselves. Right now the NHS is on life support.

Our next prime minister - plot spoiler - Liz Truss – must show courage, and commit to a seismic reorganisation of this bloated, overpriced, inefficient disaster of a system.

The NHS. Brilliant people, terrible structure. And for all this money, we’re actually getting iller. Management of preventable diseases, like obesity and type two diabetes, all expanding - like our waistlines - on the watch of GPs across the land - threatens not just the physical health of the nation, but the economic health too.

Mark my words, there will come a point at which the NHS will bankrupt Britain. Good luck good luck getting a GP appointment then. Scores of Brits, as we well know, have been borrowing money or tapping into savings, for medical procedures they simply cannot wait for, on the NHS – hip replacements, cataract procedures and even cancer treatment.

But scores of Brits, are also now using private GP services. You know, those websites and apps where you can have a video call with a private GP, or drop in clinics. Convenient maybe, but most people just don't have the money, to be able to do this regularly. And with cash-strapped, Brits, paying out for private treatment, the NHS loses its moral authority too.

With people paying out for private treatment, the NHS risks becoming like the BBC: a service many don't use, but one, everyone's got to pay for. And don’t forget, if you're paying for private health treatment, you're paying twice – given that you've already paid your taxes for the NHS.

GPs don't need a pay rise, they need shock therapy and smelling salts. And if they don't start seeing patients face-to-face, and tackling that self-inflicted catalogue of untreated illnesses, public support for our health service, will dwindle further.

If the NHS, and in particular GP practices don't change, change will be forced upon them. It will be the tough medicine, they should've been prescribed years ago. GPs are getting more money, for a service, which is getting worse. It’s enough to make you sick.