A GP took his own child to Bournemouth’s emergency department to get hold of antibiotics more quickly.

Royal Bournemouth Hospital’s emergency chief Dr Karim Hassan, said the unnamed medic knew the treatment would be provided promptly by coming to the unit – and that the general public, as well as this individual GP, needs to better understand the distinction between emergency and urgent care.

He said the department’s increased standard of care and highly skilled staff means the hospital has effectively become a ‘victim of its own success’.

He added: “We have people coming in saying ‘I am not able to do sport and my GP will only see me in three weeks time but if I come here it will get sorted’.

“We have this target of four hours [set by the government] and the alternative is an appointment with your GP who will see you in two weeks. The choice is obvious isn’t it?

“Have we ended up in a selfish society? Sadly we have patients who don’t come in when they deserve to come – they say they don’t want to waste my time. Actually the one wasting my time is the one calling an ambulance because they have a painful toe.”

He identified the General Medical Services contract, which was negotiated in 2004 and effectively ended round-the-clock GP availability, as a ‘massive changing point’.

“The government regretted that,” said Dr Hassan. “It is difficult if you work for 15 hours a day, have your hours taken down to five a day and are then asked to go back up to 15 again.

“That change in primary care has created a bottleneck in the emergency department by the lack of access and lack of availability.”

He said primary care and hospitals need to work closer together and called for the GP appointment system to be scrapped in favour of a walk-in service.

“They [primary care] have out-of-hours doctors who don’t know who you are – you no longer have your family doctor come to see you,” he said.

“A lot of good GPs will say they will shut their door at 5pm or 6pm but will carry on working until 7pm, 8pm – the appointment system has to stop in primary care – people should be able to walk into their GPs and be seen.”