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From BBC England this morning, the above and:
In her consulting room, Dr Yvonne Girgis-Hanna is at work as a GP, but not for the NHS. She is one of an increasing number of family doctors opting to practise privately.
“I could not work as a full‑time NHS GP,” she says.
“The days I do in the NHS, the next day I’m totally wiped out… You might have 30 face‑to‑face contacts, then extra telephone calls and paperwork. You just don’t have time to even go to the toilet.”
BBC analysis of Care Quality Commission (CQC), external data shows the number of doctors registering to practise outside the NHS has risen sharply.
There’s this graph too:
Classic! 400! Wow! Wait? There are 28 814 GPs in England? 400 is what percentage? 1.38%.
How does Scotland compare?
The total number of GPs qualified and eligible to work as such (those on the General Medical Council GP specialist register and based in Scotland) is not explicitly broken out in recent official reports, but workforce surveys and analyses indicate that the vast majority of qualified GPs in Scotland are engaged in NHS general practice. Trends show a static or slightly increasing headcount in NHS practices, with challenges more related to retention and workload than widespread non-participation. Thus, the percentage of qualified Scottish GPs working in the NHS (via general practice contracts) is approximately 100%, with minor exceptions for those in non-clinical roles (e.g., academia or administration) or temporarily out of practice.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25417923.number-gps-scotland-increases-first-time-since-2019/
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Talking-up Scotland 
The media reports that “US tech giant Palantir has wrapped its tentacles around the British state, securing major contracts with the Ministry of Defence and the NHS”.
But the US data analytics firm Palantir is not operating within NHS Scotland……….as in reference to the NHS and the “British State”.
So even information online states that “NHS England is a separate entity from NHS Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland” and also “The Palantir deal, which has faced significant backlash from privacy campaigners and doctors’ groups, is specific to NHS England“.
Also “As of February 2026, concerns remain high regarding Palantir’s role in English health data, with professional bodies like the British Medical Association (BMA in England) calling for a complete break from the firm”.
“professional bodies like the British Medical Association (BMA)” does that then also includes it’s, the BMA’s, Scottish part as those also resisting it , in the future, within the Scottish NHS ?
Also online “The Labour government has continued to honour the £330 million contract awarded by the previous Conservative government to US data analytics giant Palantir to operate the (English) NHS Federated Data Platform (FDP), despite increasing pressure from campaigners and health professionals”.
Indeed also noted online is that they, Labour, were so enamoured and impressed with Palantir that then:
“The UK Labour government has solidified a strategic partnership with US tech firm Palantir, confirming an extended defence contract that includes a £1.5 billion investment into the UK and makes London the firm’s European defence headquarters“.
So “working outside the NHS in England” for Tory & Labour UK governments is the norm…….for the English NHS , British (English controlled UK government) Defence and indeed anything is game…is for sale and so everything is then to be considered as “British” and so ready to be ‘privatised’……..
Not just “democracy for sale” then…….within UK politics.
Liz S
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There is ONE GP in Scotland who constantly complains about the workload of the NHS and who would probably privatise GP services if he were given the power . Tory Sandesh Gulhane tries to project an image of a hard working GP , constantly wearing his NHS lanyard when a TV camera is close by …but never appears to be anywhere near a GP practise !
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I read somewhere that he practices as a GP one day per week.
His wife is a full time GP, who also has a spot on TV news from time to time.
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When I saw this article, my immediate thought was that this is the BBC engaging in its usual pro-privatisation propaganda.
This began under Mrs Thatcher and has continued ever since. The investment freebooters Slater Walker got regular puffs. The BBC eagerly promoted opting out of public and employee pension schemes and investing in private ones. ‘PORTABLE PENSIONS’ was the alliterative slogan the BBC coined. The privatisation of water, gas, electricity were all punted by the BBC as ‘creating a notion of investors’. The sale of council houses was ‘the property owning democracy’.
As your post shows, this ‘growing number’ is less than 2% of GPs in England.
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