HEE to assess medical undergraduate attitudes towards GPs

Health Education England (HEE) has launched a review of undergraduate’s attitudes towards general practice in medical schools, after GP leaders voiced concerns about the ‘toxic’ anti-GP culture existing in some institutions.

The review is aimed at developing a strategy to improve medical student’s experience of the profession. HEE has said its action plan is to ‘review the profile of the GP career in medical schools, publish a report and recommendations and develop a strategy for implementation’.

The move is a result of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) chair Dr Maureen Baker’s declaration that there was a ‘toxic anti-GP culture’ in universities which must be addressed before the unfilled positions in GP postgraduate training can be addressed.

Baker said: “We have been calling for any anti-GP rhetoric that might exist in UK medical schools to be tackled for some time, so we welcome this review by HEE, and look forward to working with them to shape its outcome.”

In an interview with Pulse, Dr Krishna Kasaraneni, chair of the GPC’s education, workforce and training subcommittee, said: “This is about trying to look at the culture in medical schools themselves, and how can we improve the quality of general practice training and education at undergraduate level. So hopefully, with positive experiences in general practice, medical students will choose general practice again.

“This isn’t a shotgun solution because culture change is much more difficult to achieve. At least if we get the ball rolling, then 10-20 years down the road there will be many more students in general practice.”