General Practitioners: Recruitment

(asked on 24th November 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to recruit more GPs; and if he will publish an updated target on GP recruitment by 2024.


Answered by
Maria Caulfield Portrait
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
This question was answered on 9th December 2021

The Government remains committed to growing the number of doctors in general practice and is determined to deliver this as soon as possible. As such no revised target has been published. We are working with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Health Education England and the profession to increase recruitment, address the reasons why doctors leave the profession and encourage them to return to practice.

The updated GP Contract Framework announced a number of new retention schemes alongside continued support for existing schemes for the general practice workforce. These include the GP Retention Scheme, the International Induction Programme, the Return to Practice Programme, the Fellowship Programme, the New to Partnership Payment and Supporting Mentors Scheme. We have also increased the number of general practitioner training places with 4,000 trainees this year, compared to 2,671 in 2014.

Reticulating Splines