Almost every practice at least one GP short

♦ Nearly every GP surgery is missing a doctor, the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has warned, as the recruitment crisis reached its worst level on record.

The annual vacancy survey of GPS by the magazine Pulse found that one in six positions (15.3 per cent) were unfilled, up from 12.2 per cent last year and 11.7 per cent in 2016. GPS said the inability to recruit, as well as funding shortages, had forced practices to cut positions and close patient lists.

Recent figures showed that 1,000 GPS had left the workforce since 2015.

Professor Helen Stokes-lampard, the RCGP’S chairman, said: “Almost every surgery in England is now one GP short, at least, and the implications of this are very serious for the wellbeing of our GPS and wider practice teams, and for the provision of safe, high-quality patient care.” Dr Richard Vautrey, the chairman of the British Medical Association’s GP Committee, said vacancies had created “unmanageable” workloads. “The Government must prioritise general practice and urgently invest in it to address this growing crisis.

“We cannot allow a situation where patient safety is being compromised by a lack of political action.”