As reported by GP Online, The RCGP calls on Health Secretary Wes Streeting to urgently reassess the NHS workforce plan to address the GP shortage crisis
The letter warns that the workforce plan’s current aim to increase the number of GPs by 4% by 2036 will not meet the ‘growing needs of patients’ and highlights the unemployment crisis that has left many GPs struggling to find work despite record demand for appointments.
‘We need a comprehensive plan to provide sufficient capacity to train more GPs, do much more to retain the GPs we have, and ensure practices have the infrastructure and resources to employ enough GPs and their teams to deliver safe, timely and appropriate care,’ the letter says.
The letter points out that the 4% growth in GPs compares with a planned 49% growth in hospital consultants. It says that unless this mismatch is addressed the workforce plan would ‘fly in the face of’ Labour’s plans to shift more resources to primary care and community services.
It would also leave an ‘already chronically understaffed general practice woefully unprepared to meet the growing needs of patients’.
‘We there ask you to urgently review the NHS’s long-term workforce plan to better reflect your manifesto commitments,’ the letter adds, arguing that a well-funded GP service would alleviate pressure elsewhere in the NHS.
More GP funding
The letter has already been signed by almost 6,500 GPs, GP registrars and retired GPs across England.
Earlier this week Mr Streeting chose to visit a GP practice on his first official visit as health and social care secretary where he committed to increasing the share of the NHS budget that goes to general practice.
RCGP chair Professor Kamila Hawthorne said she was ‘really encouraged’ by the choice of location and Mr Streeting’s comments. She said she hoped general practice would finally ‘get the attention and support it deserves after years of being the poor relation of the NHS’.
She said: ‘We know that far too many patients are waiting much too long to get an appointment with their GP, and we share their frustration and worries. The college has been calling for more funding for the “front door” of the NHS for years, to ensure patients can access the safe and timely care they deserve.
‘Properly funded primary care can help ease the pressure on the entire NHS and support our colleagues in overstretched secondary care.’
Increasing GP workforce
Professor Hawthorne added that the college was looking forward to working with Mr Streeting to ‘ensure that we have the right balance of workforce we need to look after our patients, in particular, we need more GPs working in our practices’.
She added: ‘General practice has been struggling for years, but with the right action and investment we can turn things around, allowing GPs to deliver the holistic, continuous care that we are trained to provide and that our patients so desperately need. Our patients deserve it, as do our hardworking GPs and their practice teams.’
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