Three salaried GPs will be made redundant at a Surrey practice where 11 were asked to take voluntary redundancy, Pulse reports.
This week in a new exclusive, Pulse also revealed that partners at the Glenlyn Medical Centre took no drawings during the last year. The practice was running 20 sessions a week above budget, according to minutes from a meeting in December.
The local medical committee, Surrey and Sussex LMC, told Pulse that it backed the proposal to include GPs in the Additional Role Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS).
The story has been shared amongst NASGP members. One GP asked colleagues: “What next?”
The news comes a month after a Pulse survey found that the number of GP vacancies advertised has almost halved in a year. At the time, NASGP chair Dr Richard Fieldhouse told the magazine: “Practices must be allowed to use ARRS funding to engage GP locums and appoint salaried GPs.”
Today he commented: “Every salaried GP and locum’s heart will have skipped a beat when they saw this news last week, coming as it does at a time when many locums are reporting a sharp decline in job adverts. So to see a practice making salaried GPs redundant comes with an extra sting.
“When I’ve spoken to GP locums in this position, the story is nearly always one of practices no longer posting jobs on WhatsApp. When I’ve spoken to practice managers, their story is that when they post a job advert, they are then inundated with often hundreds of replies.
“Here at NASGP, particularly amongst GP locums working in ICB areas that fund LocumDeck, bookings remain healthy, with January set to be another record month. With so many GP locums now posting their availability ahead of the practice, practices can completely avoid the WhatsApp rush and book the locum directly.”