An investigation by the BBC has revealed that there is a chronic shortage of GPs across the UK after the number of unfilled GP posts quadrupled during the last three years.
The BBC Inside Out ComRes survey, which questioned more than 1,000 GPs in the UK, found that 56% of doctors planned to retire or leave their post before they reached 60. Further, junior doctors are side-stepping what they view an ‘unglamorous’ career.
While surgeries are struggling with an increasing demand for GP services, health practitioners and out-of-hours services are needing to deal with the overflow. One particularly concerning example highlighted by the study was that of showed was that of a Whitehaven surgery which, after opening its phone lines at 8am, had filled every one of its 49 appointments in the space of just 12 minutes.
Dr Krishna Kasaraneni, of the British Medical Association, said there was an urgent need to resolve the high number of GPs leaving the service.
“Politicians across the board need to acknowledge that general practice is not resourced and funded correctly,” he said. “Trying to ask GPs to do more and more work, and not resourcing and staffing it correctly, will mean general practice will break.”
Speaking to the BBC’s Inside Out, Mr Hunt said: “hospitals have been struggling to meet increasing demand and that has taken money away from services like GPs, mental health and district nursing.
“That was wrong and we’re moving to correct that. The centre of gravity in the NHS for 66 years has been big hospitals.
“We need to change that and make the centre of gravity general practice and out-of-hospital care.”