The latest census of consultant physicians in the UK, produced by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), suggests that specialist registrars value where they work over all other factors when considering a consultant post, most wanting to stay close to where they have been training.
The annual census, which measures the number of consultants in all medical specialties, indicates that location is the leading consideration – over the opportunity for part-time working, on-call responsibilities and the amount of generalist or specialist work undertaken.
This is reflected in strong geographical variations when it comes to recruiting to posts. For example, the North West and Yorkshire & Humber regions saw the greatest difficulty in recruiting to posts – whereas London and the Thames Valley regions saw the greatest number of appointments made, due to having a higher number of training posts.
The census also highlights the growing need for consultants who can treat the needs of older patients. Following trends noted in last year’s census, the largest number of appointments were made in geriatric and acute medicine, (113 and 108 respectively) suggesting a move away from specialist working to more generalist roles treating acutely ill patients. The nature of patients presenting at hospital is changing. 65% of people admitted to hospital are over 65 years old and many have multiple complex conditions. Such patients require more generalist input, as highlighted by the RCP’s Future Hospital Commission report. The largest specialty is geriatric medicine with 1,145 consultant physicians UK, representing 10% of the workforce.
Other key findings from the census include:
• Part time working – the proportion of doctors working less than whole time continues to grow (18%).
• The greatest expansion was in hepatology, at 38%.
• Satisfaction rates remain high with 80% of consultants reporting to enjoy their jobs ‘always’ or ‘often’.
• The youngest part of the consultant workforce (those under 35) is now largely female (58%).
• 68% of respondents supported 7-day working, though there was notable variation between specialties.
At the time the data was collected, there were 11,412 consultant physicians working in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, an increase of 359 on the previous year. The expansion of hospital consultants has fallen considerably during the past three years from 10.2% in 2009 to 3.2% in 2013.
