Minister casts doubt on whether Government can fulfil 5,000 new GP pledge
A health minister has admitted that there is a ‘risk’ around whether the Government will achieve its commitment to find 10,000 new GP or GP ’equivalents’, and that failure to achieve the target would make it ‘difficult to deliver our ambitions’.
Lord Prior – who was chair of the CQC before becoming minister for NHS productivity last year – has cast doubt on health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s commitments on GP numbers, which included increasing the workforce by 5,000 GPs by 2020.
The minister said that the Government has increased the number of training places to 3,500 from this year.
But Pulse has revealed that there has been a 5% decrease in applications this year, which would lead to only 2,630 places being filled based on last year’s 2,769 filled posts.
In the debate on GP access in the House of Lords last week, Lord Prior said: ‘The workforce is a serious issue. We are committed to finding 10,000 new GPs or GP equivalents in general practice by 2020 and we have increased the number of training places by 3,500 from this year and going forwards.
‘To be honest, there is a risk whether we will be able to get that number of people into general practice. However, without that kind of workforce commitment it will be difficult to deliver our ambitions.’
Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the GPC, said it ‘won’t be possible for the Government to meet its target’.
But he added: ‘That should not stop them doing far more to address this workforce crisis if we are to persuade junior doctors to choose general practice as a career in the future.
‘In order to turn the tide they must commit far more funding to enable practices to expand their teams with other clinicians and give a clear signal to young doctors that the long term future of general practice is sustainable.
How the Government’s target has been diluted
The DH now claims that the target of 5,000 extra GPs by 2020 will also include doctors in training, effectively giving it three more years to boost numbers.
But this was not health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s original pledge to the Conservative Party conference. His words were: ‘Tory conference, I can today confirm plans to train and retain an extra 5,000 GPs.’
And this was the rhetoric leading up to general election, with the DH saying it was committed to bringing ‘5,000 more GPs’ into the system by 2020.
But this rhetoric changed when Mr Hunt announced his ‘new deal’ in June 2015. The health secretary also said in the subsequent Q&A session that there would be ‘flexibility [in the target] because in some parts of the country it is very hard to recruit GPs’.
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Readers' comments (18)
Anonymous | GP Partner22 Mar 2016 1:41pm
They have just realized that even with plenty of eager new recruits there are not enough trainers. Of course there aren't any recruits so it's double the problem . Totalischegefuchlichheitundutterscheisse.
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Anonymous | GP Partner22 Mar 2016 1:48pm
Pay them and they will come. Pay them lots and lots will come . Cut their pay and increase their hours and they will go elsewhere. --- Old Chinese Proverb.
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Anonymous | Other healthcare professional22 Mar 2016 10:26pm
1.48
Ha ha ha...
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Anonymous | Sessional/Locum GP22 Mar 2016 10:39pm
@ 1:48
fucking fantastic :)
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Anonymous | GP Partner22 Mar 2016 11:17pm
Really
Quelle surprise!
Unlikely the profound and hopelessly dysfunctional misdisorganization
responsible for the dangerous workforce crisis could provide a SOLUTION!!!
No shit Sherlock
Really?
Abolish NHSE
Abolish hopeless runt
Then we might have a chance to save the English NHS
Drs are rightly leaving this insanity in droves
Warning
When the electorate wakes up there will be hell to pay
You do not act in my name
You act for a minority of the dysgovernment supported by 24 per cent of eligible voters..........
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Anonymous | Other healthcare professional23 Mar 2016 7:33am
So.....if they have given up the electoral promise of 5000 gps then they cannot expect gps to be held by their other electoral promise of 7 day practice. One needs the other to work.
One without the other could be shown to be grossly unfair to doctors legally possibly???
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Anonymous | Salaried GP23 Mar 2016 8:01am
"GPs" and "GP equivalents" are the same thing.
Nothing is equivalent to a GP, so offensive to suggest it is. If you want other, valuable staff as well great but don't pretend that someone less trained can do the same job.
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Anonymous | GP Trainer24 Mar 2016 4:17pm
A gp equivalent could be like a nurse practitioner in an urgent care centre, costing £120.00 per patient with 25% being referred back to a real gp to do the difficult bits. That's a fair transfer of work when you consider the real Gp has the needed skills. Only problem comes when you tell the real GP he should do the work properly for less than 10% of pay.Makes sense of the GP work force crisis.Hunts answer could be nurse consultants at £240.00 per patient,eg cardiology at my local hospital referring back to unpaid gp to prescribe drugs for the patient,because nurse consultant isn't a prescriber.
Roll on my retirement.
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