Concern as vacancies for GPs at highest ever level

VACANCIES FOR GPs are at their highest ever level, research suggests.

A survey of 860 GPs for Pulse magazine found 12.2 per cent of positions are currently vacant.

This is an increase from 11.7 per cent the same time last year, and up from 2.1 per cent in 2011, when Pulse started collecting data.

Some 158 (18 per cent) GP surgeries in the new survey said they had to give up recruiting a GP in the past 12 months after being unsuccessful.

The survey also found that the average time taken to recruit a GP partner has risen from 6.6 months to 7.4 in the last year.

Pulse said some practices are having to resort to hiring nonGPs to fill the gaps, while others have closed down 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 last year on increasing the number of GPs.

This is 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, while existing GPs should be encouraged to stay on.

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs, 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. This must be addressed as a matter of urgency.”