Editor’s Choice: Growth and nourishment

The UK’s need for more GPs is now so inescapable that even politicians have recognised that “something must be done.” But deciding what that “something” should be remains a challenge for those with the power to drive through the necessary changes.

Pledges to increase the number of GP training posts without tackling wider issues concerning medical education and the GP workforce are unlikely to succeed. We are currently able to fill only around 88% of the GP training posts available, and that success rate will not increase if we simply create more vacancies.

Iolanthe Fowler and Ben Jackson believe that providing more foundation doctors with the opportunity to undertake taster weeks in general practice should form part of a strategy to tackle workforce shortfalls in the specialty (http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=20021542). They describe a taster programme set up in South Yorkshire and its effects on the trainees who took part in the scheme. Most trainees said that being able to learn more about a career in general practice had made them more likely to choose a career in the specialty.

Elsewhere Richard Darnton and colleagues argue that, as well as increasing the number of GPs caring for patients, the health service needs to ensure that it is developing GPs into future clinical leaders (http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=20021562).

Interventions along the lines of those developed by Fowler and Jackson are likely to form part of any efforts to increase the number of doctors choosing a career in general practice. But, as Darnton and colleagues point out, efforts to grow the GP workforce need to be run in tandem with efforts to cultivate future leaders within the specialty. After all, it will be those leaders who will not only reshape local health services but also inspire others to follow in their footsteps.