NHS to hire 2,000 doctors from abroad in GP crisis
NHS bosses are to recruit 2,000 doctors from abroad because there is such a desperate shortage of family GPs.
In a sign of the deepening crisis on the frontline, health chiefs have been left with no choice but to raid Europe to plug the black hole at home.
Experts are panicked at the alarming rate family doctors are leaving the profession and not being replaced.
The emergency is so bad the Royal College of General Practitioners says more than 6,000 are needed now.
In response the Government has promised to deliver 5,000 extra GPs by 2020 with the Department for Health and Social Care confirming just under half will be brought in from abroad by NHS England.
Dr Ian Campbell, a family GP in Nottingham, said: “General practice is in crisis and GPs are leaving the service faster than we can train them. Young doctors are not attracted to the profession and older doctors, under relentless pressure, are leaving or retiring early.
“As a result, patient waiting times are growing and patient care deteriorating. We can't wait to train another 5,000 doctors, we need to attract more into the profession now. Unfortunately I fear that unless conditions within the NHS improve dramatically and immediately, then those we are able to attract to work here will quickly join the ranks of the disillusioned and leave again.”
Latest recruitment figures show 15.3 per cent of GP positions are unfilled, up from just 2.1 per cent in 2011.
Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, Royal College chief said: “We must start seeing more done to support and retain our existing workforce, or we are fighting a losing battle. The NHS is haemorrhaging more general practitioners than are entering it.”
The chronic shortage means patients are waiting weeks for an appointment.
Management consultant John Maynard, 72, of Stocktonon-Tees, has made two appointments since February and had to wait five weeks for each of them.
On each occasions he was referred to a specialist.
One doctor told the Daily Express an average GP will realistically have 2,000 patients under their care, each of whom visits the surgery about five times a year, meaning they are expected to plough through 10,000 appointments.
But if each works a 46-week year they manage just 5,520 appointments. It means there is a 4,480 appointment shortfall between the number of patients wanting to see their doctor and time available.
Based on a total GP workforce of 42,000 it means 188 million appointments are not being met each year in England alone.
Latest figures show about 3,150 people start training to become a GP every year but many practices face a recruitment and retention problem as newly-qualified GPs opt to locum between surgeries while hundreds are quitting the profession altogether.