General Practitioners: Labour Turnover
(asked on 6th March 2018) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the number of general practitioners taking early retirement; and what steps his Department is taking to increase the size of the general practitioner workforce.
The Department’s assessment is that the trend for general practitioners (GPs) taking early retirement has increased over recent years as set out in the table below.
Pension Year (1 April to 31 March) | Number of GPs taking Voluntary Early Retirement (VER) | Approximate Average Age of GP taking VER | Total Number of GPs claiming Pension | % VER |
2011/12 | 513 | 57 years | 1,545 | 33 |
2012/13 | 591 | 57 years | 1,406 | 42 |
2013/14 | 746 | 56 years and 11 months | 1,503 | 50 |
2014/15 | 738 | 57 years | 1,434 | 51 |
2015/16 | 677 | 57 years | 1,254 | 54 |
2016/17 | 721 | 57 years | 1,164 | 62 |
In April 2016, the General Practice Forward View1 made the commitment to grow the GP workforce by 5,000 full time equivalent doctors in general practice compared to 2015.
A number of steps are being taken to increase the size of the general practitioner workforce. Health Education England has increased the number of GP training places to 3,250 each year with 3,157 starting in 2017, the highest number ever.
NHS England is accelerating its international recruitment programme, following successful regional pilots. It aims to recruit at least 2,000 GPs from overseas over the next three years.
NHS England has launched the GP Career Plus Scheme, to test a range of ways to offer flexibility and support to experienced GPs at risk of leaving general practice. This is in addition to the new GP Retention Scheme which offers funding to support doctors who can only work a limited number of sessions in general practice.
NHS England has also improved the GP Induction and Refresher Scheme to make it easier and quicker for qualified doctors to return to general practice. 260 doctors are currently on the programme and 106 have completed it and are working in practice.
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