In a survey of more than 1,400 family doctors, one in five GPs in England have told the BMA they plan to change their career because they can’t find any or enough work as a doctor.
A further 47% said they were expecting to make changes. The most popular change considered is to take clinical jobs outside of the NHS (43%), but respondents also considered taking up GP opportunities abroad (40%) and, for some, leaving healthcare altogether (38%).
The BMA did its first survey on GP under- and unemployment last year, when locums reported they were struggling to find roles, but as this latest data shows, other GPs, mainly salaried, are also now struggling to find a job.2 Rising running costs and decades of underfunding in general practice have made it harder for practices to hire the staff they need. Funding has also been diverted into non-GP roles. As a short-term solution, the Government expanded the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) – a ring-fenced fund for hiring non-GP staff – to include GPs.
The BMA says this is ineffective, offering only fixed-term roles to 1,000 newly qualified GPs. In addition, as there are so few available, positions are often miles away from where GPs live and span multiple sites, which dilutes the role of the family doctor and the doctor-patient relationship. The BMA states that the latest survey shows this hasn’t been enough to solve the problem, and the crisis has spread from locums to other GPs.
Dr. Mark Steggles, chair of the BMA’s sessional GP committee, said: “At a time of immense pressure on the NHS, and patients waiting too long to be seen, it’s ridiculous that so many GPs can’t find work. These findings confirm our worst fears. Not only is the issue spreading through the profession, but it’s also leaving many wondering why they should bother staying in the NHS at all, further depriving patients of the vital care they need.
“The Government’s decision to expand ARRS is not a long-term solution. All restrictions around the Scheme’s funding must be lifted immediately, and the money put into the core general practice contract, so practices have full control over who they recruit at a local, practice level. More generally, core funding needs to increase, and premises refurbished to accommodate the staff we need to keep up with patient demand. This is a really serious situation, and we hope this survey, coupled with our Write to Your MP tool, prompts the Government to act. If that doesn’t happen, we face a mass exodus of talented GPs and an even bigger waiting list that will just set the health service back once again.”
In light of these findings, the BMA is launching a ‘Write to Your MP tool’ (accessed at: https://tinyurl.com/y4yr7r8h), to encourage the Government to urgently address this problem, starting with moving the funding for ARRS into the centralised general practice pot, so that practices have full control over who they hire, at a local, practice level.
