Over 20% of GPs give referrals to food banks

Currently, over 20% of GPs are now providing families on a low income a voucher to a food bank, which is an increase of over 15% from last year. This is putting a bigger strain on the public health care system in the UK and also shows the increasing number of families that are struggling to buy the food their families need.

While it may not be well known by all people, a GP does provide referrals to families. They will focus on issues that could lead to a health issue if not resolved, such as malnutrition. The lack of healthy food is one of those issues, that if left un-addressed could greatly impact the health of a family. So GPs partner with both Trussell Trust as well as independent charity run food banks in an effort to prevent hunger.

The economy across the UK may still be slowly but steadily improving throughout 2015. It has come a far way since the great recession. However the increase in job and incomes is not coming fast enough to offset the billions in cuts that are being made to government welfare schemes. The conservative government is reducing housing benefits, cutting back on disability, and reducing assistance to pensioners among many other cut backs. This is putting an increasing strain on household budgets and people just can’t keep up with their bills.

A number of studies show the increase in malnutrition across the country. Over the last five years, the number of cases being treated has almost doubled. About 85% more people are seeking health care for malnutrition because they can’t afford to buy a reasonable amount of healthy food for their household.

To try to tackle this crisis, one result of the cutbacks in entitlement is the growth of food banks. People are turning to their GPS for a voucher, which they can redeem for a free box of emergency groceries. Since 2014, the requests to doctors have increased by 16%, and now over 1 in 5 people in the health care field need to provide this service.

It is putting additional strain on the health care system in the UK. Not only does a GP have to deal with all sorts of medical issues, but asking them to assess whether a patient is struggling financially is putting additional pressure on them. Not only that, but GPs do not really have the information they need, or expertise, to determine whether someone should be given a voucher to a food bank or not. They do not have the financial knowledge to make this assessment.

There are many GPs have seeing the increasing impact to a person’s health from the lack of food. Doctors in the Northwest, including Manchester, state that the local councils are putting pressure on them to refer people to the a food bank for assistance. They are asking them to be official gatekeepers for the centres in the area, including the city of Manchester food banks.

There is no question that the poor are getting poorer in the UK. They also need to treat this malnutrition cases and are probably more aware of them than anyone else. However by them needing to issue a voucher, it is causing them to lose focus on their main priority of providing medical care.

Often doctors believe a social worker should make the assessment over whether someone should be provided a food bank voucher or not. As if the rate of requests continue to go up at 10 to 20% per year, this will just continue to put an ever increasing strain on the health care system and take away from the core function of helping the sick.