28 November 2017

Good Progress but More to be Done on GP Fill Rates, Says RCGP

Responding to the latest GP fill rates for medical school placements from Health Education England, Professor Kamila Hawthorne, Vice Chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: "More junior doctors have chosen to specialise in general practice than last year, so progress is being made, but it's clear there is much more to do.

"Our report, Destination GP, demonstrates that by their final year at university 76% medical students have heard negative comments about general practice at some point during their medical training. This immediately needs to be addressed if we are to secure the GP workforce of the future that we so desperately need.

"GPs are the backbone of the NHS, and we need to pull out all the stops to meet the target of 5,000 more GPs by 2020, promised in NHS England's GP Forward View. But it also takes a long time to train a GP, so we need to see initiatives implemented to build our workforce, retain existing GPs in the workforce, and make it easier to return to the workforce, as a matter of urgency."

Further Information

RCGP Press office: 020 3188 7574/7575/7633/7410
Out of hours: 0203 188 7659
press@rcgp.org.uk

Notes

The Royal College of General Practitioners is a network of more than 52,000 family doctors working to improve care for patients. We work to encourage and maintain the highest standards of general medical practice and act as the voice of GPs on education, training, research and clinical standards.