GP recruitment crisis: the importance of widening participation

INTRODUCTION

General practice is one of a number of specialties facing a workforce crisis.¹ Pressures of ever increasing workload are forcing a growing number of GPs to opt for part-time positions, resulting in a reduction in the full-time equivalent (FTE) workforce, as well as having a knock-on impact on recruitment.² Indeed, a recent think tank report identified that GP recruitment figures are actually moving further away from the governmental target for a net growth of 5000 additional FTE GPs by 2020,¹ as outlined in the 2016 General Practice Forward View.,³ Unfortunately, in the current climate, this is a trend that shows no sign of slowing. This notion is reinforced by an equally poor response to the international recruitment programme, which to date has recruited just 58 GPs over a 2-year period from an intended 2000.⁴

In acknowledgement of this issue, in 2016 the government announced an additional 1500 medical school places commencing from 2018 in an attempt to increase recruitment into a number of overstretched specialties, including general practice. The crucial difference however is that the emphasis for these additional places is on recruitment of students from currently under-represented groups in medicine with the overall aim of widening participation.⁵ Although critics suggest that widening participation is synonymous with ‘dumbing down standards’⁶ it is argued here that the opposite is true and that widening participation will ultimately be extremely beneficial for both GP …