GP retention schemes need ‘urgent’ overhaul backed by £150m per year, says RCGP

The RCGP has highlighted failings in current GP retention schemes and called for them to be urgently overhauled.

It called for an additional £150m per year to be put towards the evaluation and expansion of both national and local GP retention schemes in England, with further funding for the devolved nations.

And it said this comes as the 19,000-strong mass exodus of GPs and GP trainees it warned about in June has now risen to a potential 22,000.

In a new report on the GP workforce published today, the RCGP reported that GPs in England are struggling to access the national retention scheme, while some local areas are set to end it altogether.

The report said: ‘In England, RCGP has heard from our members who cannot get onto the scheme or have been refused access, although they feel they are eligible. 

‘Since ringfenced funding ended, some local areas have reported that they believe the scheme is too expensive and therefore they won’t support it.’

And it added that while the support programmes available across the UK are ‘valuable’, they are ‘limited in scope and scale’ with a ‘highly variable’ range of support available to GPs across the four nations and ‘significant gaps at different career stages’.

The report said that more work must be done to ‘increase awareness of the retention initiatives available in each nation’, with an RCGP survey this year finding that 11% of GPs in England were ‘unaware of the national GP retention scheme and a quarter of GPs were unaware of the new-to-practice fellowship scheme’.

It added: ‘Anecdotal feedback to RCGP from GPs who have been on the new-to-practice fellowship scheme in England has been mixed. 

‘Many have appreciated the additional support that a structured programme provides, but experiences have been variable across different areas.’

Meanwhile, the RCGP said that local GP retention schemes were also underfunded and ‘highly variable’.

It said: ‘In 2021/22, £12 million was made available for local retention schemes – this equated to approximately £9,600 per primary care network, far below what is needed to enable practices to support GPs. 

‘Across the country, local schemes are highly variable and, in some areas, have struggled to get off the ground.’

It added: ‘These schemes are dependent on the time and resources available to the practice and the local system, which are limited. Anecdotally, some practices report simply not having the time or space to set up a local retention scheme.’

The RCGP said that GP retention should be ‘as big a priority’ as recruitment and that without measures to address the exodus from the profession, the NHS as a whole will be forced ‘to the brink of collapse’.

RCGP chair Professor Martin Marshall said: ‘GPs are leaving the workforce at all stages in their career, with many citing exhaustion and burnout as their reasons for leaving. 

‘While there has been good progress to encourage newly qualified doctors into the profession, if more GPs are leaving than joining, we’re fighting a losing battle. We’re stuck in a vicious cycle of an understaffed and under-resourced service that is unable to sustainably meet the needs of its patients.’

He added: ‘Urgent action is needed to break this cycle. The Government must make GP retention a priority.’

The RCGP said that without this ‘urgent action’, workforce shortages ‘are predicted to worsen’ with almost 22,000 GPs and trainees across the UK planning to leave over the next five years.

It previously predicted that nearly 19,000 GPs and trainees will exit the profession in a ‘mass exodus’ over the next five years, unless workforce and workload issues are urgently addressed.