Up to 1,000 GP registrars face unemployment this summer, BMA warns Streeting

Up 1,000 GP registrars could face unemployment when qualifying this summer, the BMA has warned Wes Streeting, whilst calling for ringfenced funding.

In a letter to the health secretary today, GP leaders demanded ‘ringfenced’ funding to be given directly to practices in order to hire newly-qualified and under- or unemployed GPs.

Chairs of the GP Committee for England and the sessional and registrars committees collectively raised their concerns about the ‘growing GP unemployment crisis’, which they said is set to worsen when the current cohort of ST3s qualify in August.

As well extra funding for practices to hire GPs – separate from the GP ARRS scheme – the committees also demanded an urgent meeting with Mr Streeting.

The letter said: ‘We are expecting hundreds, perhaps as many as a thousand GP registrars completing their training this August who could be left facing unemployment – hence the urgency of our ask.’

Recent BMA surveys have suggested that 15% of GPs are unable to find any work at all, while one in five are making ‘definite plans’ to leave the profession because they are struggling to find work.

The union also recently revealed ‘heartbreaking’ stories of GP unemployment, including accounts of GPs planning to move abroad without their family in order to send money back or exploring different careers as life coaches or bus drivers.

Co-chairs of the GP registrars committee Dr Victoria McKay and Dr Cheska Ball also told Pulse that GPs are working for free in order to stay on the performers list as a result of the unemployment crisis.

In the letter to Mr Streeting, GP committee chairs acknowledged the additional funding for the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) this year for PCNs to hire GPs. But they said ‘this will not generate additional GP jobs’ as the ‘vast majority’ of ARRS budgets are ‘already accounted for’.

The letter continued: ‘In addition, increased budgetary pressures, including rising expenses for other practice staff, is leaving individual practices with too few additional funds to expand their GP workforce and increase their capacity.’

‘We believe that addressing GP underemployment and unemployment, particularly in areas of deprivation, is the single action which will have the greatest impact on meeting the Government’s aims of improving access and fixing the front door to the NHS to bring back the family doctor,’ GP leaders added.

They also said they hope to meet with the health secretary ‘in the coming weeks to discuss next steps and mitigations to this issue’.

Today, the BMA has also launched a social media campaign to raise awareness of the impact of the unemployment crisis on both newly-qualified and experienced GPs across the UK.

Dr McKay and Dr Ball said it is ‘devastating’ that new GPs ‘might not be able to start their careers’, and that general practice risks ‘losing them to other professions’.

They continued: ‘The few roles that are available to new GPs are incredibly competitive and even if someone manages to get one, they’re often fixed-term and not conducive to what being a family doctor means.’

GP sessional committee chair Dr Mark Steggles said the unemployment crisis first appeared among GP locums but has now ‘spread, quickly, into other parts of the profession’.

And GPCE chair Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer said the crisis ‘needs action not to both retain these GPs and give patients more appointments’.

‘We know public finances are tight – but the best bang for an NHS buck is to provide ringfenced reimbursements at a practice-level to get as many GPs seeing patients as soon as possible,’ she added.