Business of Cannabis
The British Medical Association (BMA), which represents tens of thousands of General Practitioners in the UK, this week threatened new strike action amid increasing tensions with the Starmer government.
Further walkouts are also being considered by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), as the country’s healthcare professionals demand reform, pay increases and changes to the Health Secretary’s new 10-year plan for the NHS.
This, inevitably, will have a downstream effect on the nation’s patients already facing weeks-long wait times for GP appointments, and, thanks to unyielding backlogs, will mean even less time available for their primary care.
In 2023, in response to research by the Liberal Democrats that found almost 1-in-5 GP appointments in the UK lasted five minutes or less, Professor Kamila Hawthorne, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “Years of underfunding and inadequate workforce planning means that GPs and our teams are struggling to see all the patients who need our care and give them the time they need, especially when seeing 50 or more patients in a day, which many GPs report is a common occurrence.”
As a result, increasing numbers of patients are now seeking alternative treatment routes, including private healthcare and medical cannabis. Yet, for some patients, consultation lengths continue to be a point of concern.
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