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#GPnews: Labour says efforts to recruit GPs have been ‘inadequate’

16:10 The mental health director of NHS England has hinted that practices will be providing more mental health services, potentially with support from NHS England. Read our full story here.

16:00 Hmm, Health Education England are leaving themselves hostages to fortune with their latest idea. They are running a competition to find the photo that best illustrates a typical day in general practice.

We’ll just leave this here.



14:30 The CQC has heralded the hundreth ‘outstanding’ GP practice it has rated. Although that is not a signifier of long-term sustainability, sadly.

13:45 Even Have I Got News For You are getting involved in the crisis in general practice, with a well placed dig at Jeremy Hunt to boot:

13:40 Picture of the day has to go to Dr Dave Triffitt, a UK GP currently living in Canada and clearly having a very good time.

11:15 The Labour health team have put out a press release stating that efforts to recruit GPs have been ‘inadequate’. Barbara Keeley MP, Labour’s shadow health minister, said: ’The Tories have created a workforce crisis in general practice, which has left services dangerously overstretched and put patient care at risk. The Government’s promise to recruit more GPs has been found to be inadequate, meaning the situation is likely to get worse, not better.’ 

10:30 An excellent interview with GPC chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul on the BBC website, in which he hammers home exactly what the pressure on GPs means for patients.

He says: ’On cancer we are having to make rushed decisions. And we are seeing growing numbers of patients with dementia – and yet just have 10 minutes to see them.

’It’s not enough. We are being forced to let down patients. We need to see more investment in general practice so we can keep up with demand and have longer 15-minute consultations.’

The interview accompanied a BMA survey of GPs that revealed:

  • 55% of practices reported that the quality of service in their practice had deteriorated in the past 12 months.
  • Just 2% of practices said their workload was low or generally manageable.
  • 55% said their workload was unmanageable a lot of the time while 13% said it was unmanageable all of the time.
  • 92% said that there had been a rise in demand for appointments in the past 12 months.
  • The West Midlands had the highest level of unmanageable workload with 16% percent of GP practices recording this level, while the South of England reported the biggest deterioration in patient care with 66% saying it had declined.

9:35 Elsewhere, theDH has told Pulse that it is in talks with the CQC around discussing closer scrutiny of GPs’ antibiotic prescribing. The GPC has said that the CQC is already monitoring GPs enough on prescribing.

9:20 Good morning everyone. The nationals have picked up on Pulse’s stories on GP training applications decreasing by 5%, and the golden hello schemes being implemented by Health Education England.

The Mirror’s headline reads ’Tory pledge for more family doctors in tatters after 5% DROP in training applications’.

The Telegraph, Mail and Times focus on the incentives, with headlines of Junior doctors offered £20,000 ‘golden hello’ to train as a GP ,More than 100 young GPs given £20,000 ‘golden hellos’ to work in unpopular or remote areas as surgeries make desperate attempts to avoid recruitment crisis (no prizes for guessing that was the Mail’s) and £20,000 bonus for GPs to plug vacancy gaps
.