‘GP unemployment needs to be tackled head on’ says College Chair

College Chair Kamila Hawthorne responds to the latest warnings on GP unemployment from the BMA to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

Professor Kamila Hawthorne, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “It makes absolutely no sense that GPs are struggling to find work when patients are crying out for appointments. This letter from the BMA reflects concerns the College has raised and what we have been hearing from our members - GPs are struggling to find appropriate roles, or in some cases any roles at all, and some are considering leaving the country or profession entirely.

“Ultimately, this crisis has been caused by decades of chronic underfunding and poor workforce planning that has left general practice struggling to stay above water. The efforts made to address this - freeing up ARRS funding to employ GPs - have been helpful in the short term, but we need long term solutions to this growing crisis. We need to see more funding into core general practice, that will allow practices to hire the roles they need to best deliver the care and services their patients need.

“The Government needs to tackle this issue head on - we need to be doing all we can to keep trained GPs in the profession, not standing by whilst they leave. Alongside this we need to see initiatives to recruit and retain GPs, supporting the entire pipeline and ensuring 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.