More than one in four GPs are ‘looking for work’ despite GP partners and practice managers reporting shortages, a new large-scale survey by Pulse has found.
Of the 2,300 healthcare professionals surveyed, some 399 sessional GPs (salaried GPs and GP locums) took part. Of this cohort, 27% said they were currently looking for work.
At the same time, GP partners and practice managers representing 640 practices in England reported a 16% shortfall in the number of GPs they wanted to employ. Pulse estimates that this works out to around 5,300 GPs.
Some 76% of practice managers in another survey told Management in Practice, Pulse’s sister title, that they had been unable to hire the GPs they needed: most (45%) cited a lack of funding but others lacked the space (37%).
Sessional GPs who are looking for jobs report searching for an average of seven months, and finding an average of just 2.47 roles per three months.
Dr Simon Opher, GP and MP for Stroud, launched a campaign on the issue in conjunction with Pulse’s white paper and the campaign group Rebuild General Practice.
Dr Richard Fieldhouse, NASGP chair, said: “This report highlights a series of paradoxes. Practices are short of GPs, whilst at the same time, GPs are short of work. Practice income is about to be hit by a rise in NICs and minimum wage increase because they are deemed to be private businesses, but cannot increase their income to fund these increases because they are also deemed to be public bodies.
“And if that is not confusing enough, practices with the most deprivation are struggling the most to recruit.
“So there has been no better time for Pulse, Rebuild General Practice and Simon Opher to come together to launch this campaign.”