GP Recruitment and Retention

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) on leading the debate. I will be short, because I wish to make three key points and I do not need long to do that.

First, we have a recruitment and retention problem in Stroud, like in many other parts of the country. That became apparent to me only when I was re-elected, when I talked to various of my GP friends who were keen to retire and were not necessarily finding replacements easily. It is clear that at the moment there are huge gaps in the service. However, it is not necessarily that they are not being filled, because as my hon. Friend said, locum work is very popular. That is the main point I want to make. Because locum work is so popular, we have to look at the reasons why the traditional model is not working. Even for people who become doctors, it is not necessarily a lifelong career, so for all sorts of reasons buying into a practice now is not an attractive proposition. I ask the Minister to look at what ideas are coming forward, as it is clear that the traditional practice model, where a GP buys into the assets of the practice as well as becoming a doctor there, is now of a bygone age. That particularly matters because trying to get a lead practitioner is onerous, because they are often the only full-time doctor in their practice, which puts additional responsibilities on them. I hope that we can have some flexibility in how we attract people in, otherwise there is only one direction things will go.

Secondly, the number of people who start on the route to becoming a GP but do not end up as a GP in practice is disappointing. There is something wrong both in doctoring in general, and particularly in general practice, with the number of people who fall by the wayside. Again, as I have intimated, that is because there are attractive alternative career structures. There are ways in which people can be a GP part-time as well as doing other things, which may be commendable for someone’s work-life balance but does not fill the gap. I hope the Minister will look at what is happening to recruitment patterns. We need to recognise that eight or nine years is a huge investment, so if someone does not become a GP in some form or other at the end of it, it is a wasted investment. I hope the Minister will be able to say something about how we can ensure that people follow through on their training potential.

Thirdly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South mentioned, we need to recruit a number of doctors from overseas at least in the short run. Having talked to consultants and the Royal College of General Practitioners, I know that there is a problem at the moment—at least in perception, if not in reality—of people not wanting to doctor in this country when they would traditionally have wanted to do so. We need to overcome that problem urgently, because we need those people in place, otherwise, there will be an even greater shortfall.

My last point—it is not to do with GPs, but I think it is crucial—is about the pressure on other people within primary practice. I get calls continually from health visitors, practice nurses and physiotherapists saying how difficult things are, and that must have an impact on general practice. If we could ease some of the pressure on those people, we could only help those who want to be in general practice and be at the front end of our NHS.