GPs have warned that scarcity of locum work has left them worried about surviving appraisal.
One GP told colleagues: “I live in fear of not making 40 sessions a year. Currently this is a challenge with limited locum work again due to ARRS climate.
“When I CCT’d I finally took a sigh of relief only to realise I couldn’t really be free in the way I had hoped. My ideal would have been between 1-10 sessions a year. I would love to do other things without feeling tied to a GP job which doesn’t pay and just feels like risk and pain. Surely one can’t have a low volume of work forever without it being pulled up? Do they even care?”
Another GP warned that low-volume practitioners in their area were advised to pay for a private appraisal.
They said: “They need different systems for those doing low-volume NHS because working in other private medical roles (where fair enough, get a private appraisal which also counts for your revalidation), and those working low-volume for reasons of illness, disability or life circumstances.
“I’ve seen many doctors just give up as they were told they’d have to retrain when they had only been low or no volume for a few years and then leave clinical practice altogether, which almost feels discriminatory.”
One GP questioned the political commitment to general practice when the profession faced these challenges: “The current employment market had made many GPs suffer not only the risk of unemployment but the risk of unemployability through removal. Is there any real commitment to saving general practice in such a system?”
Another lamented the dilemma for sessional GPs at a time of long waits for GPs appointments: “I am in Wales where low volume rules are similar [to England] but not exactly the same. It is an awful situation where patients are crying out for GPs and we can’t find work.”
At the moment, there is no national minimum number of sessions a GP should work per year. But below 40 sessions, GPs across the UK must work hard to justify their low volume at appraisal.
The NASGP hosts a structured reflective template for GPs on low volumes.
Dr Richard Fieldhouse, NASGP chair, said: “At a time when satisfaction with GPs is at an all-time low due to patients being unable to get an appointment, if they were to discover that GPs are struggling so much to get work that they’re at risk of being unable to revalidate, we’re at risk the population being struck down by a national outbreak of vertical nystagmus secondary to aperceptiosis.
“This struggle for GPs to find work, risking their revalidation and forcing them to consider alternatives, at a time of low patient satisfaction and appointment difficulties, could worsen the national situation.
“With this significant and prolonged anxiety, and warnings that experienced GPs may leave if things don’t improve, although a new GP contract and government engagement offer hope, urgent action is needed to prevent the loss of valuable professionals.”
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