‘Come home’ plea to Scots GPs working in Australia
Recruitment drive Down Under
SCOTTISH health officials are heading to Australia to try to persuade expat GPs to come home to work.
Staff attending a medical conference in Perth have appealed for doctors who are working in the city to meet them.
They want to bring them back to Scotland, where family doctors are in short supply and surgeries across the country are turning away patients.
‘Scotland needs its trained GPs back’, NHS Education for Scotland (NES) says on its website, stating that only a two to four-week induction programme is needed before they can start working in this country again.
It follows reports that as many as two in five new GPs who have been trained in Scotland are being lured abroad by warmer weather and four-day working weeks.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has already called for family doctors who have taken career breaks in order to have children to return to the workforce.
It takes ten years to train a GP, including medical school, which makes luring existing doctors back a far quicker fix.
But the NHS may struggle to bring back some doctors who have left for Australia, after trying to attract them with the prospect of Scotland’s weather and promising they would again ‘enjoy’ our ‘four seasons of weather (sometimes in one day)’.
Dr Dean Marshall, a member of the BMA’s general practitioners committee and a family doctor in Edinburgh, said: ‘I can see no reason why these people would want to come back to general practice i n Scotland at the moment. It has got worse year on year and is now in crisis.
‘What we need to do is concentrate on keeping the ones we’ve got. The only way that will happen is by properly funding general practice and making the survival of general practice the number one issue in the health service in Scotland.’
A spokesman for NES said its officials also planned to make use of their time at the 2016 Ottawa medical conference to meet those doctors in Canada who may want to return to their home country.
While in Perth, they will even attempt to poach Australian doctors who might want to work in Scotland for the first time. It follows a social media campaign targeting Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the rest of the UK to try to encourage GP ‘returners’.
These countries are the most popular destinations for trainees who leave Scotland after qualify- ing. Delegates attending the Perth conference have set aside four days between March 19 and 23 to meet doctors interesting in returning.
On its website, the organisation says: ‘Are you missing Scotland? Are you contemplating returning? Now is a good time – coming back to general practice in Scotland couldn’t be easier!’
It adds: ‘Scotland needs its trained GPs back. With the development of a new GMC contract under way, more investment in general practice, access to the NHS pension scheme and a health service that is arguably one of the best in the world, there is much to commend working as a general practitioner in Scotland right now.
‘Why not come back to enjoy our four seasons of weather (sometimes in one day), our diversity of culture and proximity to the rest of the world.’
It promises no entry assessments, no additional costs and – in a profession struggling to fill vacancies – no lengthy waits to find a post.
Last year, a study by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh found that almost half of junior GPs and hospital doctors who train in Scotland leave the country or profession within five years of qualifying. Audit Scotland, meanwhile, warned last year that more than a third of GPs are over 50, putting them relatively close to retirement.
The Royal College of GPs has supported the potential recruitment move, stating that Scotland ‘needs and wants’ its doctors back from other countries.
A spokesman for NES said it would send eight delegates to the Australian conference.
He added: ‘Attendance at the event provides Scotland with the opportunity to meet face to face with those who want to return to practice in their home country – as well as those who are considering working in Scotland for the first time.’
The spokesman added: ‘Scottish medics are in high demand because our medical education and training is world-class.’
‘Back to enjoy the weather’