GPs will argue against drafting Specialist and Associate Specialist (SAS) doctors into primary care at the annual local medical committees’ conference next week.
“We do not believe that general practice currently has the staff, financial or premises resources to accommodate an intake of SAS doctors,” the General Practitioners’ Committee on Education & Training Policy warned in a statement published via BMA.org.uk.
SAS doctors will be the subject of the ‘major issue’ debate on the opening day of conference.
Sessional GPs have taken lead roles in the production of this year’s conference:
- The event will be chaired by Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, a salaried GP.
- Deputy chair Dr Matt Mayer is a portfolio GP.
- Agenda committee members Dr Rachel McMahon and Dr Euan Strachan-Orr are also GP locums, and Dr Bethan Roberts (another committee member) works as a salaried GP.
Sessional work will be under the spotlight as GP trainees put forward a motion for the model salaried GP contract to be renegotiated and limited to 25 contacts a day.
The sessional GPs’ committee has also called for funding to attend conference for GPC and constituent committee members to be reinstated to improve representation.
Dr Richard Fieldhouse, NASGP chair, said: “I am delighted to have been invited to this year’s LMC conference as an observer for both days on behalf of NASGP, and I’m looking forward to these debates. So good to see so many sessional GPs driving the conference. Although I will be unable to take part in the debates myself, this is a great opportunity for GPs across the UK to focus on serious issues affecting the profession, giving us the chance for us to provide a clear mandate for the GPC to negotiate with the government.
“I believe only a few of us would expect the deployment of SAS doctors in general practice to make much of an impact, bearing in mind the almost complete lack of resources to support their deployment, but it is more that its implementation highlights how disconnected the government’s workforce plans are from actual reality.
“If you happen to be at the conference and spot me in the corner, please do come over and say hello.”
