BBC analysis<\/a> which found that the average GP in England has to care for 17 per cent more patients than nine years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAccording to the BBC online report, for every permanent GP there are more than 2,300 patients, a rise of nearly 350 since 2015, with some areas exceeding 3,000 patients. The widely recognised safe limit is one GP to 1,800 patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK\u2019s GP spokesperson, said the figures do not tell the whole story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shortage of GPs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
He said: \u201cAlthough there are fewer GPs working, and it\u2019s often worse in areas of deprivation, the cold reality is that there is a shortage of funding not general practitioners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMany GPs are now finding it increasingly difficult to get work and some are even taking on roles outside of medicine to pay the bills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNHS England has cut funding to GP practices by 20 per cent per patient in the past eight years alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGPs themselves are earning 20 per cent less in real terms and practices don\u2019t have the funds to retain, recruit, or expand their GP roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cInstead NHS England has moved funding into other roles via the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) at the expense of GPs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Ellen Welch, DAUK\u2019s vice chair and a GP in Cumbria, said: \u201cWe currently have GPs who are unemployed and on benefits who cannot get the work they have been trained to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI lost work as a locum at the start of the year as the practice was given Government funding to employ a pharmacist instead of a locum GP.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unemployed<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Dr Lizzie Toberty, DAUK\u2019s GP lead said a \u2018fundamental shift in thinking towards retention\u2019 was needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have full training schemes, we have unemployed GPs, and we need meaningful jobs for them to go into,\u201d said Dr Toberty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe addition of GPs to the ARRS up to March is too little, too late and is only for newly-qualified GPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are GPs with 20 to 30 years\u2019 experience who can\u2019t get jobs or are being made redundant by some companies who are taking over practices and trying to run them with nurses, paramedics, and physician associates with just a GP to oversee them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe need achievable, worthwhile and meaningful careers for GPs to aid retention, and ultimately continuity of care which has the potential to save the NHS a fortune.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Become a member of DAUK and support our work.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Experienced GPs stand ready to solve the staffing crisis in general practice but a lack of Government funding has resulted in a shortage of family…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,59,310],"tags":[38,304,23,42],"class_list":["post-1272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dauk-news","category-general-practice","category-uncategorized","tag-dauk","tag-gp-committee","tag-gp-crisis","tag-the-doctors-association-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}