Locum doctors
In the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a sharp drop in demand for GP locums in the NHS, causing a renewed debate in the medical community about their role in the primary care workforce. Historically, there has been a dearth of academic studies exploring impacts of locum working on the medical profession, prompting a cross-institutional UK research team to examine this by interviewing locum doctors, locum agency staff, and representatives of healthcare organisations who use locums.1 They found that locums were perceived to be inferior to permanently employed doctors in terms of quality, competency, and safety, and …