Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what systems his Department plans to put in place to support the recruitment of GPs from abroad.

The General Practice Forward View (GPFV), published in April 2016, includes a commitment to deliver a major international recruitment drive to attract at least 500 appropriately trained and qualified general practitioners from overseas by 2020.

Following publication of the GPFV, NHS England’s general practice workforce team has been engaging with regional and local National Health Service teams, Health Education England, and other stakeholders, including the Royal College of General Practitioners and the British Medical Association, to agree an approach for delivering the commitment. These different stakeholders have agreed that the programme will be locally led and delivered with national oversight, co-ordination and support by the national general practice workforce team.

Each overseas recruitment project will be expected to satisfy a set of national principles; the national principles are set out at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/gp/gpfv/workforce/international-gp-recruitment/national-principles/

The contracts and support packages for international doctors recruited into general practices will vary across the country, to be tailored to the opportunities and needs of the local health system. A budget of up to £20 million has been identified to support schemes up to 2020.