NHS will offer Australian doctors £18,500 to lure them to the UK as it ‘pulls out all the stops’ in a desperate bid to plug a GP staffing crisis which has left millions at risk of their surgery closing down
- The NHS will offer the valuable ‘relocation package’ as it tries to boost hiring
- There’s a shortage of family doctors and hundreds of UK surgeries may close
- Thousands of GPs are close to retiring and there aren’t enough to replace them
The NHS will offer Australian doctors a ‘relocation package’ of up to £18,500 to move to the UK as it tries to hire more GPs to battle a staffing crisis.
The health service will target GPs who previously left the UK for Australia and are looking to return home, as well as Australian GPs who want to live in the UK.
NHS England’s director of care says the UK is ‘pulling out all the stops’ as it tries to bring in doctors from a country where training and quality are as high as at home.
Figures last week revealed as many as 2.5 million patients are at risk of losing their surgeries in the next five years because so many doctors are close to retiring.
Around 10,000 GPs in the NHS are expected to quit or retire within the next ten years and the health service is now expanding the number of doctors it is trying to recruit from overseas to plug a staff shortage
Doctor recruitment is being widened to Australia after the NHS received applications from more than 1,200 GPs in Europe.
NHS England’s director of primary care delivery Dominic Hardy said: ‘It’s no secret the NHS needs to recruit more GPs.
‘So it makes sense to head to Australia where doctors’ skills, training and high levels of care closely match those of their British counterparts.
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‘The recruitment programme is gathering momentum with interest from GPs in Europe and we also have more home-grown GPs in training than ever before.
‘But why stop there when we know many Australians would welcome the opportunity to work in an English clinical practice.’
In September 2015, then-Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, pledged there would be 5,000 extra GPs in England by 2020.
But the number of full-time doctors in the workforce has fallen by more than 1,000 since then.
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has long warned of a ‘crisis’ in the GP workforce.
It last week released figures suggesting that three-quarters are aged 55 or older and approaching retirement age.
As a result, some 762 doctors’ surgeries across the UK are at risk of disappearing by 2023 because at least three quarters of their GPs are close to retiring.
NHS GP SHORTAGE IS A ‘DESPERATE SITUATION’
Official figures showed in February that 41 per cent of GPs – around 10,000 doctors – are 50 or over and are expected to quit within the next five to ten years.
And 2.5 million patients are at risk of their local GP surgery closing because so many are relying on doctors who are close to retirement, it was last week revealed.
At the same time, fewer young doctors are choosing to specialise as GPs and are opting for other career paths as surgeons or specialists.
Many GPs are retiring in their 50s, moving abroad or leaving to work in the private sector, increasing the pressure on those who still work in the sector.
Appointment waiting times are getting longer and more people are going to A&E for minor illnesses because they can’t see a doctor.
Despite an NHS a plan to recruit 5,000 extra GPs by 2021, numbers of family doctors are falling.
And 762 GP practices across the UK could close within the next five years, according to the Royal College of Nursing.
Rachel Power, chief executive of the Patients Association, last week told The Times: ‘This is a desperate situation with potentially serious consequences for patients.’
Figures in February showed a massive 10,000 (41 per cent) GPs are expected to quit within the next 10 years.
And there are fewer young doctors choosing careers as family doctors, in part because workloads have become so large and stressful.
Chair of the RCGP, Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard said: ‘Australia is the first country we have evaluated because we know their training and experience is similar to that of the UK and there are doctors wanting to come to the UK.
‘The streamlined system is intended to cut out a huge amount of bureaucracy, and bring these doctors into placements and work much quicker than before.’
NHS England said another 700 doctors have applied to join an improved recruitment scheme for GPs, including more than 200 from overseas.
Domestically-trained doctors whose membership has run out and have not practised for two years or more will be encouraged to start working again.
And they will be joined by new international doctors who are joining the NHS for the first time.
NHS England’s Mr Hardy added: ‘We are pulling out all the stops to solve the shortage of GPs.
‘That’s why we are commissioning two specialist UK recruitment agencies to target Aussie doctors and stretch our search for top talent from Europe to the other side of the world.
‘Our message is that we want to encourage doctors to think about practising as a GP in England and we will support them all the way.’
Una Lane, director of registration for the General Medical Council (GMC) added: ‘Overseas doctors already make a huge contribution to UK health care.
‘The GMC has worked with the RCGP to streamline the process and to reduce the bureaucracy for doctors in Australia who want to work here.
‘As standards in Australia are similar to our own it should be as easy as possible for doctors from there to come to the UK, while at the same time maintaining the high standards that patients rightly expect from their GPs.’
MORE THAN 700 GP SURGERIES COULD CLOSE BY 2023
More than 2.5 million patients across England could see their GP surgeries close in the next five years, experts revealed last week.
The Royal College of General Practitioners said 762 practices in the UK are at risk of closing within the next five years because at least three quarters of their doctors are aged 55 or over and approaching retirement.
Experts said so many closures would have a ‘catastrophic’ effect on the health service.
Appointment waiting times could get even longer, workloads would grow and more people could end up queueing at A&E for minor illnesses.
Campaigners warned the potential closures would be ‘dangerous’ for patients and are calling for ‘drastic action’ to encourage new GPs to join the profession.
The situation is worst in Southend in Essex, where 13 of the area’s 35 GP practices are at risk of closing, potentially affecting nearly 39,000 patients.
A third of surgeries in the London borough of Havering could shut down, and more than 85,000 patients could lose their GP in Sandwell and West Birmingham.
Only around a quarter of areas of England have no practices at risk of closure, according to the RCGP’s estimates.
Figures from the Royal College of General Practitioners have revealed 762 GP practices across the UK are at risk of closing in the next five years (Map shows the proportion of surgeries in each area which are at risk of closing)
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