Editor’s Choice: Sliding backwards

At the same time as the United Kingdom needs more GPs to stay in practice and more doctors to train as GPs, the indications are that the exact opposite is happening.

In March a BBC survey found that 56% of GPs want to retire or leave the NHS before they reach 60. In April a BMA survey showed that a third of GPs are considering retiring from general practice in the next five years. Also, applications for GP training posts fell this year for the second time in a row; this drop has left 28% of GP training posts across the UK unfilled after the first round of recruitment.

Matthew Limb reports this week on more disappointing developments on this front, with news of a reduction in the time that medical schools allow for teaching in general practice (http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=20022342). Increasing the number of doctors choosing a career in general practice will take decades.

Recruiting overseas doctors has been the usual shortcut used to tackle shortages in the medical workforce. But this year the government decided that, since there is not a shortage of medical students, the UK has enough doctors to fill its vacant GP posts. Its Migration Advisory Committee said, “Any shortage of GPs can be addressed by changing the incentive structure such that the GP route becomes more attractive relative to the hospital consultant route.”

Efforts to make careers in general practice more appealing will also take a long time to have an effect. Last month Sarah Wollaston, Conservative MP and former GP, told medical schools to stop concentrating on hospital specialties as the favoured career option for medical students. We will have to hope that the deans of medical schools, and others who have the power to solve the current problems in the medical workforce, were listening to her.