Government highlights ‘new record number’ of fully-qualified GPs working in the NHS

The Government has highlighted new data showing a ‘record number’ of fully-qualified GPs working in the NHS.

The Department of Health and Social Care pointed to new figures on the GP practice workforce in England which showed that there were 29,008 full-time equivalent (FTE) fully-qualified GPs (excluding GPs in training grade) working for the NHS in June.  

This is not a record number, with higher figures recorded between September 2015 and September 2017, but DHSC confirmed to Pulse it was referring to the number of FTE fully-qualified GPs including those working in PCNs.

Adding the 1,175 FTE GPs employed by PCNs through the additional roles reimbursement scheme (ARRS) last month the total reached 30,182.9 FTE GPs, which is the highest since the current methodology was introduced in September 2015.

In a post on X, DHSC said: ‘Figures out this week show we’ve reached a new record number of fully qualified GPs working across the NHS. Overall satisfaction in GP practices is also up this year. We’re fixing our health service so it’s easier for you to get the care you need.’

The BMA responded to the figures saying that after years of rising demand, GP numbers ‘have barely grown compared with what patients need’ and that progress is welcome, but there is ‘still a long way to go’ to rebuild general practice and improve access to care.

It comes after the union told Pulse that the profession is still facing an ‘astonishing’ unemployment crisis, with its sessional GP committee ‘still getting many reports’ of GPs struggling to find work.

Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) GP co-lead Dr Steve Taylor told Pulse that the separation of GP workforce counting among PCN and GP datasets may lead to some minor ‘double counting’ of GPs in the official figures. 

Dr Taylor told Pulse: ‘It is good that more GPs are finding employment but with record numbers of GPs qualifying each year now there are still not enough roles being made available.

‘GPs are underemployed and unemployed in some cases. ARRS GP employment was meant to be an emergency fix whilst NHSE and Government found better ways to improve employment. They haven’t. There is still a massive gap in funding to employ the GPs that are available.’

FTE figures differ from overall headcount because it is the proportion of full-time contracted hours that the post holder is contracted to work – one FTE would indicate they work a full set of hours (37.5 hours a week), 0.5 that they worked half time.

The FTE statistic is ‘more meaningful’ than a raw headcount as it ‘reflects the true number of clinical hours the NHS has at its disposal’, according to the BMA.

It comes as this year’s imposed GP contract expanded the ARRS scheme to include ‘experienced’ GPs and also ‘repurposed’ £292m from PCNs to fund ‘a new practice-level GP reimbursement scheme’ to ‘enable practices to recruit new GPs’ or ‘increase the number of sessions from GPs already working in the practice’.

However, GP finance experts warned that much of the allocated funds for the reimbursement scheme will go unspent because of overly restrictive rules for claiming the money.