GP Shortages

Question 1

What is the role of a GP?

Answer 1

Primary Care Physicians which see a variet of patients with acute presentations and chronic conditions

Long term planning and strategy with patients on their healthcare recovery through the use of prescriptions, asking for bloods, scans to refer patients to -> managing their overall condition

Question 2

How many GPs were lost in 2023, and what is the impact of this?

Answer 2

646 GPs were lost and now there are 4200 in shortages

Patient to GP ratio is now 2300 per GP as of November 2025 (RCGP)

Makes it harder for patients to get primary care appointments and damaging their perceptions of the NHS

Question 3

Key factors to consider to resolve GP shortages

Answer 3

1. GPs aren’t paid as much as hospital consultants, GPs can become GP partners but it’s not for everyone
2. Working conditions are often poor, extremely high workload
3. Have to see patients within 10 minutes (taking their history, examining a patient, possible diagnoses and follow up arrangements
4. Lots of time on admin work and GPs describe them as unimportant tasks

Question 4

Impact of the NHS GP crisis on patient care

Answer 4

Individuals face challenges in securing an appointment -> can result in delayed diagnoses of severe conditions such as cancer

These issues are worse in the least affluent areas where access to GPs is worse due to health inequalities (in Glasgow in one area the LE is 65.4 years compared to the neighbouring region where it is 83)

Question 5

Potential solutions to the GP shortages in the NHS (4):

Answer 5

1. Funding - important to allocate more funds to both paying GPs to ensure retention and training them to get more doctors into the profession
2. International GPs - making it easier for foreign GPs to get visas to work in the UK
3. Increasing the role of other healthcare practitioners -> practice nurses taking more responsibilities and reduce the GPs workload (however there are nurses shortages)
4. Pay Protection - ensures that doctors switching form GP to another specialty are paid the same throughout their training as they would be in their previous post to they aren’t put off switching jobs by a pay cut
5. Paying for missed appts but condemned by the BMA as it increases inequalities between different socioeconomic backgrounds