GP recruitment crisis intensifies as vacancies soar to 12.2%

Vacancies for GPs are at their highest ever level, research suggests.

A survey of 860 GPs for Pulse, a news magazine for general practitioners, found 12.2% of positions were currently vacant – up from 11.7% at the same time last year and from 2.1% in 2011, when Pulse started collecting the data.

The findings show 158 GPs (18%) have been unsuccessful in filling a vacancy in the past 12 months. In that period, the average time taken to recruit a GP partner has risen from 6.6 months to 7.4.

Pulse said some practices were having to hire non-GPs to fill the gaps, while others had closed after failing to recruit a GP partner.

A report from the Commons public accounts committee in April found there had been “no progress” in the previous year on increasing the number of GPs, despite a government target to recruit 5,000 more by 2020. The report said the number had actually fallen, from 34,592 full-time equivalent doctors in September 2015 to 34,495 in September 2016.

MPs said more trainees needed to be recruited and that existing GPs should be encouraged to stay on.

Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said of Pulse’s findings: “We know that practices across the country are finding it really difficult to recruit GPs to fill vacant posts, and the degree to which this problem has increased over the last six years is staggering.

“In the most severe cases, not being able to recruit has forced practices to close, and this can be a devastating experience for the patients and staff affected, and the wider NHS.”

Stokes-Lampard added: “At present, UK general practice does not have sufficient resources to deliver the care and services necessary to meet our patients’ changing needs, meaning that GPs and our teams are working under intense pressures, which are simply unsustainable.

“Workload in general practice is escalating – it has increased 16% over the last seven years, according to the latest research – yet investment in our service has steadily declined over the last decade and the number of GPs has not risen in step with patient demand … This must be addressed as a matter of urgency.”

GP recruitment crisis intensifies as vacancies soar to 12.2%

GP numbers tumble in the Uk as recruitment crisis bites

In the East Midlands, only 62% of GP trainee places were taken up this year. Photograph: Alamy

The government is facing a GP recruitment crisis with new figures showing a fall in the number of family doctors since the coalition came to power amid warnings that the take-up of training places is the worst since 2007.

Official data analysed by the House of Commons Library shows that at a time of ever increasing demand for their services, the number of GPs has dropped by 356 compared with its level in 2009/10. The proportion of family doctors serving every 100,000 people has also dropped, from 70 in 2009/10 to 66.5 now.

At the same time, GP leaders have raised serious concerns about what they say are the “worst ever” figures on GP training, with the take-up of places having fallen to 62% of those available in the East Midlands and little over 70% in large parts of the north of England.

In the August intake this year, according to Health Education England, 2,564 places were taken up in England, down from 2,764 a year ago. The government has promised to train 3,250 new GPs a year by 2016, a goal which has already been shunted back by a year.

These figures follow surveys showing almost half of GPs predicting the average waiting time for appointments at their practice will exceed two weeks from next April, as they struggle to cope with unprecedented workloads.

Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the British Medical Association’s GPs’ committee, told Pulse magazine: “This worrying shortage of GPs will only exacerbate this crisis and could leave us in a situation where there are simply not enough GPs to cope with the number of patients coming through the door. The imbalance in filled posts between the north and south of England could also mean that we are seeing the opening up of a division in the standard of care patients get in different parts of the country.”

Dr Krishna Kasaraneni, chair of the GP trainees’ subcommittee, said: “These are the worst figures we have ever seen in GP recruitment since everything was standardised in 2007.”

Labour increased the number of GPs by 8,106, from 27,811 in 1996/7 to 35,917 in 2009/10, by pouring money into the service. Since 2009/10 the total of GPs has fallen to 35,561.

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said: “Government cuts and and attacks on the professions have left GP morale at an all-time low. They have created a new GP recruitment crisis as young doctors choose to work in hospitals rather than in overstretched general practice.” Morale had fallen because the government had “raided the GP budget to pay for a reorganisation that no one wanted and no one voted for”.

The Department of Health said it had cut the number of targets that GPs have to meet by more than a third “to free up time with patients” and was increasing traineeships so that GP numbers continued to grow faster than the population at large.

It said that different figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre showed the number of full-time GP equivalent posts had risen by 1,000 between 2010 and 2013. But it did not contest the latest data for 2014 produced by the Commons Library and Health Education England.

The GP data has emerged as declining NHS performance has become a major concern for David Cameron, according to senior figures in Whitehall. Recent weeks have brought disclosures that breaches of politically important key NHS targets, including those governing A&E care, planned operations and both cancer tests and treatment, are happening more often and at more and more hospitals.

On Friday Downing Street announced a £650m cash injection to tackle what is developing into a summer crisis in A&E, and the growing number of people waiting for planned operations, which last week topped three million for the first time in six years. £400m of the £650m came from diverting money from other projects. Further emergency cash injections are expected.

“This extra money is a sign of the panic across Whitehall, especially in Downing Street, about NHS waiting times going south,” said a senior NHS figure involved in the negotiations over the cash.

GP numbers tumble in the Uk as recruitment crisis bites