Baroness Meacher
Main Page: Baroness Meacher (Crossbench - Life peer)
Lord Bethell
The noble Baroness makes an important and fair point. Understanding why people depart is very important. Departure rates are too high for us to hit our objectives and raising retention rates is important. However, I emphasise that the leaver rate has not increased as she implies. In 2014 the rate was 14% and in 2018 it was 15%. That is not a huge increase but it is too high and we are finding ways to address it.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, in his initial response to the Question, the Minister referred to initiatives to increase the number of GPs. Does he have an estimate of how many GPs will be created through these initiatives, and by which year does he anticipate that the additional 6,000 might be achieved?
Lord Bethell
The initiatives that I described—the two-year primary care fellowship programme, the new-to-partnership payment and the locum support—are retention rather than recruitment initiatives, but an important part of our recruitment proposition is that those seeking a career in medicine think of it as a rewarding and fulfilling long-term career. As for the numbers we are seeking, we are already hitting the targets for graduate positions, and we have been encouraged by the response.