Types of career

Every UK citizen is entitled to be registered with a GP practice. This means that everywhere you go is on some GP's patch. Whether it is the most idyllic and isolated of rural areas or the most run-down inner city, a GP will be caring for the people who live there. The contrasts are enormous. From practicing alone on a tiny Scottish island to working in an urban health centre in a deprived area with 20 other doctors, the newly qualified GP has an astonishing number of career choices. Indeed, not only do GPs see a tremendous variety of patients but they all work in remarkably different ways. Most GMS GPs are self-employed, in charge of running their own small businesses, and have considerable freedom in the way that they choose to work and in what additional skills they choose to learn.

 

The new GMS contract was introduced in April 2004 and provides greater flexibility of GP careers, and gives GPs the option to opt out of the responsibility of out-of-hours care and to be paid for the quality and variety of services that they provide. Other GPs are employed by their local health authority on Personal Medical Services contracts. In the different countries of the UK, general practice is administered in different ways - and there are even subtle differences from area to area. In England, for instance, general practitioners are now grouped together in primary care trusts and have increasing responsibility for running of general practice and the commissioning of hospital services for the community.

 

Group Practices | Health Centres | Single-handed Practices | Rural General Practice | Inner-city Practice | Sessional GPs | Academic GPs

 

Prison doctor | Police Surgeon | Football stadium doctor | GP trainer | Media doctor | Armed Forces GP | GP with a Special Interest

If you encounter a problem with this page please email the web team
© Royal College of General Practitioners 2008
Registered Charity Number - 223106