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RCGP launches recruitment video to promote general practice to medical students

The RCGP has launched the first ever recruitment video by a medical royal college in a bid to boost the number of medical students choosing general practice.

The RCGP video focuses on newly qualified GPs explaining what attracts them to the speciality, and it comes as NHS England announced it will allocate £10m of new funding to tackle the GP recruitment crisis and retain older GPs.

The video was filmed at St John’s Medical Centre, Lewisham, and on home visits with patients.

RCGP chair Dr Maureen Baker said the video was designed to dismiss ‘outdated stereotypes’ of GPs simply handing out cough medicine and referring the more difficult cases to consultants.

She said: “This video – and the GPs who appear in it – show that nothing could be further from the truth. Being a GP is exciting, varied and challenging, as well as being the only role in the NHS that delivers care for the whole person over their lifetime. GPs are now performing procedures every day in our consultation rooms that a decade ago would automatically have been referred to hospital specialists.’

The video includes Dr Chris Ferdinand, a GP at St John’s Medical Centre, who was also part of GP documentary ‘Behind closed doors’.

He says: ‘All doctors have an important role in looking after the health of their patients, but in terms of the one doctor who is going to be most present throughout a person’s life, and therefore has the opportunity to make the most difference and look after somebody’s health over years, a GP has the opportunity to do that.’

It also features Dr Tina Scoble, a GP trainee, at the practice: ‘You see that same patient, over many years and also their family members as well which is quite nice. You get to maintain that relationship, and that continuity, even when they’re at home when they’re housebound.’