Funding gap will leave NHS short of 16,000 GPs, says royal college

The Royal College of General Practitioners claims a funding squeeze with hit GP services, and lead more patients to use hospital A&E departments. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Observer

An acute NHS funding gap will lead to a shortfall of almost 16,000 GPs within the next eight years, according to the Royal College of General Practitioners.

The body claims that a ?30bn funding deficit, revealed by the NHS last week, has led to a shortfall to date of more than 8,300 GPs across England. There are currently about 34,000 GPs. The RCGP says that increased pressures on the NHS, caused by factors such as an ageing population, mean the budget for general practice will face a ?2.7bn deficit by 2021. This, it claims, will lead to a further 7,500 fewer GPs than it believes will be needed in eight years. "The fact that, in just eight years, we could see a shortfall of almost 16,000 GPs is truly shocking," said Clare Gerada, who chairs the RCGP. "General practice is at the heart of the NHS and if it is left to wither, as is the case now, it could sow the seeds of an unprecedented disintegration of the NHS, both in primary and secondary care."

The claims will be seen in the Department of Health as an attempt to secure a larger portion of its budget. But the RCGP insists that general practice is under threat. A recent poll commissioned by the body found that 85% of GPs think general practice is "in crisis", while half believe "GPs can no longer guarantee safe care to their patients". The poll found that 55% of GPs conduct 40-60 patient consultations each day; 46% say they work at least 11 hours in surgery and 84% say their workload has increased substantially in the past five years.

The RCGP claims there is a funding imbalance because GPs conduct 90% of all NHS contacts each year but general practice receives only 9% of NHS funding. "Such is the key role that general practice plays, that if it starts to fall apart, the impact will be felt across the rest of the health service, leading to longer waits in A&E and ever more last-minute cancellations of elective surgery," Gerada said. She called on ministers to increase funding for general practice to 10% of the NHS budget "immediately", and help boost the number of medical graduates going into general practice.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said it had protected the NHS budget, increasing it in real terms over the next four years. "We are also looking to increase the number of GPs by asking Health Education England to aim for 50% of future medical students to train as GPs," she said.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jul/14/nhs-funding-squeeze-shortage-gp

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