GP ‘crisis’ as Yorkshire doctors look to retire

The British Medical Association (BMA) has warned political party leaders that their promises of boosting doctor numbers are “absurd” following a study of more than 15,500 of UK GPs.

In Northern England a third of the 3,558 GPs who responded to a BMA survey said they intended to retire in the next five years, citing issues with heavy workloads and a lack of time with patients. More than 5,000 GPs nationally also plan to retire.

Yorkshire has long had issues in filling its vacant GP training posts. A third of Health Education Yorkshire and the Humber’s GP training places were unfilled after the first round of recruitment earlier this year.

Dr Richard Vautrey, a Leeds GP and deputy chair of the British Medical Association’s GP committee, explained that many older GPs have simply had enough.

“Many feel they have not been valued by Government and have been constantly attacked and undermined by Governments of both colours in the last decade. They feel their only option is to call it quits,” he said.

“It is a workforce that is predominantly in its 50s planning to retire as soon as they can, and that’s the case right across Yorkshire.”

The BMA has called on the next Government to prioritise funding for practice services and community nursing teams in the face of rising discontent.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA GP committee chair, said the findings were concerning, showing GPs are “facing burnout”, at a time when 4,515 GP training posts were left vacant last year.

“Since it takes five to eight years to train a GP it is not possible to create thousands of GPs in this timeframe,” he said.

“These pledges blindly ignore the recruitment and retention crisis that is draining the numbers of GPs we already have.”

According to the BMA survey, nationally almost three in 10 full-time GPs are thinking about going part-time, one in 10 would consider moving abroad and seven per cent would consider quitting medicine altogether.

Dr Krishna Kasaraneni, a Rotherham GP, started at a practice of seven GPs three years ago – just one of the original doctors remains after several moved abroad.

He said his practice has had to scale back its work to the “bare bones”, cutting extras like minor operations and the training of new GPs, which he claims offers him little confidence in political promises on GP recruitment.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has promised to increase GP numbers, Labour leader Ed Miliband has promised to recruit 8,000 more, while Conservative party chief David Cameron has pledged to enlist at least 5,000 if elected.

“When you try and match the facts up against promises of creating more GPs, with nearly 20 per cent of the workforce saying they are going to retire in five years, most of their pledges mean absolutely nothing,” he said.

While the number of GPs is slowly rising – up by four per cent since 2006 to over 32,000 – this has been outstripped by demand which has seen hospital waiting rooms bulge in recent months.

It is estimated that the number of patient consultations has risen by 13 per cent to 340million in the past four years alone. Meanwhile funding has been squeezed by 3.8 per cent in real terms since 2014.

An NHS England spokesman said it is on track to have 4,900 more GPs trained by 2020 than it did by 2012.

Adding that “primary care is the bedrock of the NHS”, he said NHS England has invested £10m in initiatives to recruit and retain doctors into general practice.