>Are the NPs not permitted to treat these other conditions, or incapable? Both. They're cheaper because they've received much less training than a GP. We could

>Are the NPs not permitted to treat these other conditions, or incapable? Both. They're cheaper because they've received much less training than a GP. We could allow them to treat a wider range of conditions, but there would be serious patient safety implications. The use of nurse practitioners in primary care is relatively new and we don't have a lot of good-quality evidence on patient outcomes, so it's reasonable to act with some caution until we have better evidence. Even in their current role, they could be missing significant clinical issues that a doctor would have spotted - we just don't know at this stage. The concern isn't about the 99% of patients who have something mundane, but the 1% of patients who have something that looks mundane but is actually very serious. There's undoubtedly some amount of territoriality on the part of doctors, but at the moment everyone is just desperately trying to cope with demand. There seems to be fairly good esprit de corps throughout the NHS, with practitioners at all levels uniting around the need to maintain good patient care against the common enemy of Jeremy Hunt.