General Practitioners

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The Government are committed to seeing 5,000 new GPs. This is probably the biggest expansion of primary care that we have seen for many years. It is not just 5,000 GPs but a further 5,000 people working in primary care, including physician associates, practice nurses, physiotherapists and other allied health professionals.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not the case that, although the analysis that the noble Lord has given us is very accurate, the solutions that he seems to be putting forward are not very clear? Can he say what incentives he and his colleagues will offer young medical students beginning their training to encourage them to go into general practice? It is fine to say that we will train 5,000 more doctors, but we cannot force them into general practice if they do not want to go.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The noble Baroness is quite right. After five years as a medical student, they then do two foundation years before making the choice whether to become a GP or to go into specialist medicine. That is a crucial time to persuade young doctors that there is a good, long-term career in general practice. Health Education England and NHS England are putting huge resources into persuading young doctors at that stage in their career that there is a good future in general practice. I say to the noble Baroness that there is no doubt at all in my mind that, if we run the clock forward five years, more care will be delivered in primary practice and in the community than in acute hospitals.