IN MY VIEW... Part-time GPs should work in A&E

THERE’S clearly a desperate shortage of GPs. The question is, how do we resolve this?

Recently the Health Secretary Sajid Javid said he was ‘not going to pretend’ that plans to recruit a further 6,000 GPs by 2025 are on track. It seems general practice does not have the draw that it once did.

Talking to a younger GP colleague recently, I was surprised to learn of a general misapprehension that in the 1970s and 1980s, when I started out, we had it easy, with so many GPs to go around.

It’s true that back then there might be 50 applications for every partnership post in general practice, but the work itself was hard. For many years, my nose was on that grindstone of alternate nights and weekends on call, and I have my old diary recording 21 home visits during one on-call weekend.

We now live in a different world, with red tape and a growing older population creating additional work — and recruiting new GPs is clearly challenging.

Perhaps the answer is to redeploy those we do have. Many now prefer to work part time, opting for a three-day week. I suggest these GPs should be directed into staffing the GP units which form part of many A&E departments.

It could save the hospital emergency medical teams spending so much time engaged in general practice activity, rather than emergency medicine, as now happens due to low levels of GP involvement in out-of-hours cover.

Working within an A&E unit, these doctors would not be burdened with admin or other non-clinical activities — which are just the kind of things that put so many off joining general practice.

If I had my time again, this certainly would appeal to me!