The NHS’s lack of GPs is so acute that ministers must boost the number of medics who train to be family doctors to a record 5,000 a year, the head of the profession is demanding.
The unprecedented rise in the number of GP trainees is needed urgently because the workforce has shrunk so sharply and waiting times for appointments have become so long, said Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard.
The chair of the Royal College of GPs urged the government to increase the number of trainees in England from 3,500 to 5,000 as soon as possible to relieve the strain on surgeries and burnout that are pushing so many to quit.
Boris Johnson will not be able to fulfil his pledge to shorten waiting times to see a GP or a longstanding promise to expand the workforce by 5,000 doctors unless his government ensures that over half of all medical graduates become family doctors, she warned.
Growing numbers of GPs are giving up as a result of a relentless rise in the demand for patient care and the impact of punitive changes to doctors’ pensions. The NHS lost 576 full-time equivalent GPs last year - one in 50 of the total - according to latest official workforce figures published last week. In June it had 28,257 full-time, fully qualified GPs, compared with 28,833 a year earlier.
“GPs and our teams are facing intense resource and workforce pressures and it is causing a growing crisis in our patients’ access to general practice services, which the prime minister pledged to address when he took up office,” Stokes-Lampard said.
“We need to think big, and based on current workforce trends the college estimates that we need to start training at least 5,000 GPs every year to meet the government’s overall target to expand the GP workforce by 5,000 full-time GPs.”
Johnson recently declared “it cannot be right that people are waiting so long to see their GP”. He has promised to improve access but not given any details so far.
Many patients have to wait more than two weeks to see a GP, according to the most recent evidence.
In a letter to Rishi Sonak, the chief secretary to the Treasury, Stokes-Lampard said the rise in the number of GP trainees would need separate funding to the £4.5bn extra that is due to go into primary and community care by 2023-24.
It costs the government an estimated £150,000 to fund a GP during what is usually three years of training, on top of the £250,000 cost of undergraduate medical training.
Although the number of full-time GPs in post is falling, the number of medical graduates entering GP training is at an all-time high. It has risen from 2,671 in 2014 to 3,473 last year, which was the first time the target of 3,250 had been exceeded.
Nigel Edwards, the chief executive of the Nuffield Trust thinktank, said more GPs would mean fewer graduates becoming hospital doctors.
“I completely agree that more GPs are needed. The current shortfall has seen patients’ experience of waits get worse year after year, and created a vicious cycle as overwork makes doctors retire early.
“But we do need to remember there are only so many medical graduates coming through, so realistically we would need to cut back on trainees going into hospital, which may not be easy. And more GPs coming in won’t solve this problem alone if burnout keeps pushing them away again.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We have seen a record number of GP trainees enter training and we expect that trend to continue this year. We have also created an additional 1,500 undergraduate medical school places and opened five brand new medical schools so that more doctors are beginning careers in the NHS.
“The NHS People Plan – published later this year by NHS England – will set out our plans for securing the staff we need for the future, including for primary care.”