GPs should be on list of shortage occupations

The Royal College of GPs (RCGP) has urged for GPs to be added to the UK’s list of shortage occupations, to ease overseas doctors being recruited in the UK.

Writing to the Home Secretary, the college urged her to declare family doctors a key group of workers so that they can help plug the gap in staff shortages within the health system.

Paramedics, radiographers and old age psychiatrists are already on the list, while nurses were added in 2015. Since their addition, the number of EU-trained nurses and health visitors working in the NHS has increased from 16,888 in 2015 to 22,232 by 31 March this year.

In the letter, the RCGP also ask Amber Rudd to reduce the long waits and delays facing overseas-trained doctors hoping to become a GP in the NHS.

Dr Helen Stokes-Lampard, RCGP chair, told the Guardian: “It’s baffling that whilst our profession is experiencing such widespread workforce shortages, GPs are not on the shortage occupation list, which cuts out some of the arduous bureaucracy involved in relocating to the UK from abroad, while ballet dancers, animators and orchestra musicians are. I value the arts greatly, but I also value the NHS, and the NHS relies on a robust, reliable general practice service.

“We need to be doing everything in our power to tackle the desperate shortage of GPs right across the UK, and that includes breaking down barriers that are deterring appropriately trained doctors from overseas who want to join us in delivering care to over one million patients a day.”