Pledge of 6,000 more GPs unlikely to be met

Health Secretary Sajid Javid has conceded that the government is likely to break its promise to increase the number of GPs in England by 6,000.

Giving evidence to the cross-party Commons Health Select Committee. Javid said that ‘we are clearly not on track’ to increase the number of GPs in England by 6,000 by 2025, which was one of the commitments to improve the NHS Boris Johnson repeatedly made in the election campaign of 2019.

Javid said part of the reason the target is likely to be missed is the number of GPs retiring early, a fact the BMA attributes to the government’s failure to include measures to relieve the pressure on GP surgeries in its recent plan to guarantee in-person consultations for patients who want one.

Richard Vautrey, the chair of the BMA’s GPs committee, said: “The latest workforce figures for England show that we have lost the equivalent of more than 1,800 full-time, fully qualified GPs since 2015, despite pledges to increase numbers by 6,000. So while the health secretary’s admission today is long overdue, it is absolutely not news to GPs and their colleagues working in surgeries across the country that have been decimated by workforce shortages.

“The bottom line is we are haemorrhaging doctors in general practice. While more younger doctors may be choosing to enter general practice, even more experienced GPs are leaving the profession or reducing their hours to manage unsustainable workloads.”