‘The Government must tackle this unemployment crisis at its root’ warns College

Responding to BMA survey findings on GP unemployment, Professor Kamila Hawthorne, Chair of the Royal College of GPs said:

“It makes no sense that GPs are struggling to find work when patients are crying out for appointments - and as these survey results show, it's leading to GPs considering leaving the profession, which will have far reaching and long-term consequences for patients and the wider NHS.

“Ultimately, this crisis has been caused by decades of underfunding and poor workforce planning that has left general practice struggling to stay above water. No GP should go through medical school and their GP specialty training only to face worry that they will not have a job at the end of it – especially when we know patient need for our care and services is increasing. We need more GPs, not fewer, and we should be doing all we can to keep qualified GPs in the profession – and reassure GP registrars that they have a long career ahead of them.

“The efforts made to address this - expanding ARRS funding to employ GPs - have been helpful in the short term, but we need long-term solutions to this growing crisis.

“The Government must tackle this employment crisis in general practice at its root; by increasing the core funding for practices so they can hire the GPs they need to deliver the care patients need. Alongside this we need to see greater investment in initiatives to both recruit and retain GPs to ensure patients can access safe and timely GP services when they need them.” 

Further information

RCGP press office: 0203 188 7659
press@rcgp.org.uk

Notes to editors

The Royal College of General Practitioners is a network of more than 54,000 family doctors working to improve care for patients. We work to encourage and maintain the highest standards of general medical practice and act as the voice of GPs on education, training, research and clinical standards.