Patients waiting longer for GPS as recruitment crisis worsens

WAITING times to see a GP are set to climb even higher amid a six-fold rise in vacancies for family doctors, new figures suggest.

A new poll by Pulse magazine shows that 12.2 per cent of positions are currently vacant – an increase from 2.1 per cent in 2011 – while almost one in five GPS polled said they had given up trying to recruit a doctor in the last year because it had proved impossible.

Last month figures showed record numbers of GP practices closing, following a rise in the number of doctors retiring early ahead of a tax clampdown on pension pots. Meanwhile, the number of patients waiting at least a week for an appointment has risen from 13.8 per cent to 19.3 per cent in three years. More than 250,000 patients have been “displaced” by surgery closures in the last year, a five-fold rise since 2013.

The shortages come despite a national recruitment drive, and average earnings of £100,000 a year for GP partners. Prof Helen Stokes-lampard, chairman of the Royal College of GPS, said practices were struggling to recruit doctors “and the degree to which this problem has increased over the last six years is staggering”.

She said: “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.”

Amid warnings that patients are facing waits of up to four weeks to see a GP in some areas, some surgeries are now refusing to book all but same-day appointments, while other practices have drawn up plans to offer just 13 appointments a day for urgent cases.

Liz Mcanulty, chairman of the Patients Association, described the new figures, from a poll of 860 GPS, as “highly concerning”.

She said: “Soaring GP vacancy rates are a significant warning sign that we may increasingly struggle to deliver the care that patients need.”

In the last year, the number of family doctors has fallen by 400, despite the Conservatives pledging to increase the GP workforce by 5,000 by 2020.

Junior doctors have been offered “golden hellos” of £20,000 to train as a GP, and attempts have been made to recruit hundreds of medics from Poland, Lithuania and Greece.

Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chairman of the BMA’S GP committee, said: “Some practices are looking to recruit therapists, pharmacists and other health professionals but of course they are not a replacement for a GP. There needs to be a real step-change in recruitment initiatives to ease the pressure on GPS.”

Seventy per cent of female GPS and 28 per cent of male family doctors now work part-time, and nine in 10 trainees intend to do so, or to combine GP work with other roles with many citing “burnout” from workload. In just five years the number of patient consultations has risen by 15 per cent.

An NHS England spokesman said: “This miniature survey of fewer than one in 10 GP practices is statistically incapable of giving an accurate national picture on GP posts, and what’s more the survey response rate was even lower than last year which further invalidates any inferences about annual trends.”