GPs offered 4 1/2 MONTHS extra holiday

But can incentive of unpaid annual leave REALLY solve staffing crisis?

‘Need them on the frontline’

GPS are being offered four-and-ahalf months off work each year to travel the world in a desperate bid to fill empty posts.

Doctors will be allowed up to 18 weeks unpaid annual leave if they join struggling rural practices under the radical scheme.

They will work in small teams, covering each other’s long absences when not travelling, then working in developing countries or even joining global expeditions as medics, supporting teams travelling to mountains, jungles and deserts.

The scheme is being introduced by the Scottish Rural Medicine Collaborative (SRMC), a Scottish Government-funded programme to develop ways to improve recruitment and retention of rural GPs.

A quarter of surgeries in Scotland have at least one vacancy and there are particular concerns about the difficulty in luring doctors away from cities to remote areas.

The Wanderers and Adventurers scheme aims to attract those who want to pursue ‘other interests’. Participating GPs, who would be employed by health boards, would also be entitled to paid holidays on a pro-rata basis.

GPs in Scotland who are employed directly by health boards are salaried and earn up to £89,000 a year full-time.

But last night critics said Scotland can’t afford to send GPs away from the front line.

Scottish Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs said: ‘No one is disputing the need for imaginative solutions to the GP crisis.

‘But sending doctors off for four months when we desperately need them on the frontline is clearly not the answer.’

The holiday offer follows a similar scheme by the SRMC, Rediscover the Joy of General Practice, which recruits GPs to work for short periods in the north of Scotland. After 33 doctors were appointed, that scheme is now being extended.

Ralph Roberts, the SRMC’s chairman and chief executive of NHS Borders, said: ‘Our remit is to come up with innovative ways of tackling what has seemed an intractable problem and I believe these initiatives do that.

‘We all know Scotland, like the rest of the UK, has a major issue with GP recruitment and retention and we believe it’s necessary to consider fresh approaches, often involving out-of-the-box thinking, to help ensure that general practice remains viable, sustainable and attractive to the next generation of doctors.’

The Scottish Government needs to recruit an extra 800 GPs over the next decade.

Surgeries are relying on additional staff such as nurses, paramedics or physiotherapists with advanced training.

Some out-of-hours services have seen temporary closures and a number of practices across Scotland have folded, handing their contracts back to health boards because they cannot recruit senior staff.

Orkney GP Dr Charlie Siderfin, a medical adviser to the Scottish Government and the SRMC’s clinical lead, said: ‘Wanderers and Adventurers will offer doctors the kind of flexibility in their life many crave while ensuring that practices benefit from dedicated nuclear teams of highly-motivated GPs.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The Rediscover the Joy project and the Wanderers and Adventurers scheme are part of a coordinated approach to boost recruitment and retention of GPs across Scotland.’