Scotland ‘will be 750 GPs Short within Six Years’

Doctors are warning Scotland will be short of 750 GPs within six years because of a shortage of training places. With the equivalent of one in six posts for family doctors lying vacant, they say this scenario could mean patients no longer have their own GP.

The British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners have joined forces to call for urgent action to increase funding for GP training.

In a letter to Andy Kerr, the Health Minister, they warn that an “already worrying” prediction – that Scotland would be short of 500 GPs by 2012 – was a major underestimate because it assumed more people were completing the training scheme each year.

This summer the number of places remained static at 280, despite a massive rise in demand to join the scheme.

Dr Dean Marshall, deputy chairman of BMA Scotland’s GP committee, said: “We are not going to have enough GPs in the next five years.”

He said the issue had repeatedly been raised with the Scottish Executive health department, but it appeared they did not value the profession. He added: “People value their general practitioner. However, the way we are going, not everyone is going to be able to have a GP in the future.”

With 30% of Scotland’s GPs over the age of 50 and the increasingly female workforce more inclined to work part-time, the BMA and the RCGP believe there is a pressing need to accept more candidates on the GP training programme.

Only last week, the BMA warned that immigration from eastern Europe had pushed up patient numbers and an extra 30 GPs were required to meet this workload.

In addition, the executive’s vision for the future is based on an NHS doing more to look after people in the community, keeping them out of hospital.

However, there is already evidence of gaps in GP provision. Six health boards have had to draft in doctors from Europe to provide emergency GP cover during bank holidays or weekends.

Despite this, places on the GP training programme have been kept to 280 for three years. Because of the number of doctors who pursue the course part-time or take maternity leave before completion, fewer still qualify each year.

When the RCGP first estimated the shortage of GPs facing Scotland it assumed the system produced 261 new GPs annually. In fact, the average for the past five years is 232.

This has led the RCGP to revise the predicted shortfall of GPs by 2012 upwards to 746.

Dr Mairi Scott, chairwoman of the Royal College of GPs in Scotland, said the failure of the executive to increase training places had been a huge disappointment.

She said: “We have been flagging up our concerns about this for a long time. Workforce planning in the Scottish Executive until very, very recently has failed to look at GPs. They say it is very difficult to do and it is, but that should not be a reason not to do it.”

A spokesman for the executive said the number of GPs had grown from 3790 in 1999 to 4050 in 2005, an increase of 260.

He added: “We are currently looking to increase the number of training places provided, to ensure patients continue to get the best-quality services in the future.”