DAUK has warned the lack of clarity over the future of GP services is deterring younger family doctors from becoming GP partners.
Dr Steve Taylor, GP co-lead of the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), was speaking to GP Online.
GP Online reported general practice in England has lost almost 700 full-time equivalent GP partners since the last general election.
The numbers of younger partners was ‘in freefall’, it reported.
Younger GPs
Dr Taylor said: “The ongoing uncertainty about the future of GP services and in particular partnerships is causing younger GPs to think that there is no point considering taking on the risk.”
This reluctance is leaving ‘a smaller group of GP partners carrying the risk and burden’, Dr Taylor said.
He said: “A 20% cut in pounds-per-patient funding has left many practices with little choice but to take pay cuts and reduce costs.”
As hospital trusts run a £2.2bn deficit, GP practices are being left to ‘pick up the pieces of a failing NHS without the resources’, Dr Taylor added.
GP contract campaign
DAUK has launched a campaign – Your GP, here for you – for a new patient-centred GP contract.
It calls for a rise in funding per patient to secure the future of partnerships.
“In reality this needs to be £40–£50 per patient per year,” Dr Taylor said. “Without it there will be no GP services.”
Read the GP Online report in full.
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