General Practitioners
(asked on 3rd July 2018) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the reasons that deprived communities are unable to (a) recruit and (b) retain GPs.
In December 2015 NHS England published a research document ‘Looking to the future: the recruitment, retention and return of GPs’ which considered the issues around in general practitioner (GP) recruitment and retention. This is available at the following link:
Following publication, a number of national GP recruitment and retention schemes have been put in place including the Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme and GP intensive support sites.
The Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme is a national incentive scheme which funds a £20,000 salary supplement to attract GP trainees to work in areas of the country where GP training places have been unfilled for a number of years which may include deprived communities. 238 places were filled in 2016 and 2017. 265 places have been made available in 2018.
In June 2018 NHS England announced the launch of the GP Retention Intensive Support Sites. Seven areas across the country have been selected which are struggling the most with GP retention. The sites will bring interventions together at different levels – personal support for GPs, practice support and system support/improvements – to achieve the greatest possible impact on the engagement and retention of local GPs.