Now nurses to retrain as GPs in NHS crisis
‘Sticking plaster solution’
NURSES, dieticians and pharmacists are to be retrained as doctors to tackle Scotland’s NHS crisis.
A new part-time course has been launched for health workers to take medical degrees, it was announced yesterday.
The move, the first of its kind in the UK, is in response to a chronic shortage of doctors in Scotland.
Anyone with a healthcare related degree would be eligible for the Edinburgh University course which starts next year. The 25 places will be part-time for the first three years, to allow NHS professionals to carry on working while they study.
But critics last night warned the move was ‘too little, too late’.
A total of 85 extra places at medical schools are being funded by the Scottish Government in an effort to boost the number of GPs by 800 over the next decade.
One quarter of GP practices have at least one vacancy and the last year has seen a 43 per cent rise in the number of NHS consultant posts lying vacant for more than six months.
The five-year course will be largely online for the first three years, before going fulltime for the final two years.
Previously, health professionals who wanted to retrain as doctors were required to complete a full-time undergraduate degree programme.
Professor Moira Whyte, head of the University of Edinburgh’s College of Medi‘This cine, said: ‘By combining new technologies and traditional medical teaching in general practice and hospital settings, we hope to reduce barriers that have previously deterred people from moving between health professions.
‘We expect the scheme will make an important contribution to addressing doctor shortages across Scotland.’
Dr Alasdair Forbes, deputy chairman of the Royal College of GPs Scotland, said: is a welcome initiative as part of what must be a whole set of solutions to help address the fall in GP numbers.’
But Miles Briggs, Scottish Tory health spokesman, said: ‘With Scotland short of an estimated 856 doctors, the addition of 85 training places will not do enough to meet this need, especially as GPs take about ten years to be fully trained.
‘The GP crisis that the SNP have presided over in Scotland in the last 11 years has led to the current shortage of doctors and this is too little too late.’
Scottish Labour health spokesman Anas Sarwar described it as a ‘sticking plaster solution’.
Health Secretary Shona Robison said: ‘The innovative proposals will see 85 new places to specifically promote general practice as a longterm career for young doctors and allow experienced healthcare professionals who may be interested in becoming doctors to enter medicine.
‘The courses will include more involvement of GPs in teaching and assessment and enhanced GP placements in deprived and rural settings.’