One man in five dies before the age of 65.
TOGETHER we can change that.

Men able to see a GP seven days a week

30/09/14 . Blog

The prime minister has announced that everyone in England will have access to 'GP services' seven days a week by 2020. What does this mean for men's health?

Firstly, this does not mean that men will have access to their GP or their GP's practice seven days a week. As the BBC's Nick Triggle reports:

Seven-day access does not mean every GP surgery being open. Instead, what has happened in the pilots that have got under way is that surgeries have grouped together to share the responsibility with different practices taking it in turns to open.

We need clarity

Does this make it easier to know how to get a GP after work on a Wednesday or on a Sunday lunchtime?

Some GPs who tried extended opening in recent years found that there was limited demand. The Men's Health Forum believes that there has been little marketing of such services so men have continued to think that A&E is their only option. Will this remain the case if there is uncertainty over which GPs are open on a Sunday and how you find them?

The Men's Health Forum has long highlighted the benefits to men's health if men could visit GPs practices near where they work as well as near where they live. This would particularly benefit men as they are still nearly twice as likely to work full-time and tend to commute further.

The full results from a survey by the HSJ have just been made available to download and show that, for 65% of men, location is the most important factor in GP services, ahead of opening hours (still at 54%). Based on our own work, we were not suprised that only 5% of men in the survey felt the gender of the GP was most important. 

  • The Men's Health Forum runs Man MOT which enables men in Haringey to chat online to a GP.
  • Our chief executive, Martin Tod, recently gave a talk on men and primary care at an event hosted by the European Men's Health Forum.

​

 

The Men’s Health Forum need your support

It’s tough for men to ask for help but if you don’t ask when you need it, things generally only get worse. So we’re asking.

In the UK, one man in five dies before the age of 65. If we had health policies and services that better reflected the needs of the whole population, it might not be like that. But it is. Policies and services and indeed men have been like this for a long time and they don’t change overnight just because we want them to.

It’s true that the UK’s men don’t have it bad compared to some other groups. We’re not asking you to ‘feel sorry’ for men or put them first. We’re talking here about something more complicated, something that falls outside the traditional charity fund-raising model of ‘doing something for those less fortunate than ourselves’. That model raises money but it seldom changes much. We’re talking about changing the way we look at the world. There is nothing inevitable about premature male death. Services accessible to all, a population better informed. These would benefit everyone - rich and poor, young and old, male and female - and that’s what we’re campaigning for.

We’re not asking you to look at images of pity, we’re just asking you to look around at the society you live in, at the men you know and at the families with sons, fathers and grandads missing.

Here’s our fund-raising page - please chip in if you can.

Registered with the Fundraising Regulator

Contact
Address
  • The Men's Health Forum
  • 82 Tanner Street
  • London, SE1 3GN

Charity registered in England and Wales (no. 1087375). Company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (no. 4142349).