The former health secretary Jeremy Hunt will join doctors’ representatives today in a call to stem the “bleed” of GPs or risk endangering patients.
Polling shows that almost nine in ten GPs fear that patient safety is being put at risk by shortages of family doctors and too little time for appointments.
The government has admitted that it will fail to fulfil an election pledge to recruit 6,000 extra full-time GPs by 2024.
Hunt is campaigning with the British Medical Association and the GPDF, which represents local medical committees, in calling for the government to put forward a GP workforce plan to “rebuild general practice”.
He said: “The workforce crisis is the biggest issue facing the NHS. We can forget fixing the backlog unless we urgently come up with a plan to train enough doctors for the future and, crucially, retain the ones we’ve got.
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“As someone who tried hard to get more GPs into local surgeries but ultimately didn’t succeed because the numbers retiring early exceeded those joining, I’m passionate about fixing this.”
As health secretary, Hunt clashed with the doctors’ union over pay and conditions, with junior doctors going on strike. He is now chairman of the Commons health and social care select committee.
He said: “The BMA and I haven’t always sat on the same side of the table, but I’m joining them and other GPs to sound the alarm about the workforce crisis in our surgeries because we must now rebuild general practice as a matter of urgency.”
The campaign wants the government to deliver on its pledge for an extra 6,000 GPs in England and action to tackle the reasons for GPs leaving the profession, such as burnout. It says that a plan is needed to reduce GP workload, which would improve patient safety.
A poll of 1,395 GPs across Britain found that nine in ten feared that patients were “not always safe” at their surgeries. Seven out of ten felt that the risks to patient safety were increasing.
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Dr Kieran Sharrock, a GP in Lincoln, said: “The scale of the exodus from general practice in the last few years scares me. The UK government must act soon to stop the bleed.
“I implore our political leaders as the cost-of-living crisis bites: if you raise taxes to pay for NHS improvements yet fail to stem the flow of GPs out of local surgeries, standards will drop, waiting times will rise, and you will face a wall of public anger.”
The Department of Health and Social Care said: “We are committed to growing the general practice workforce to ensure everyone receives the care they need and there has been an increase of more than 1,600 GPs over the past two years. Through the GP access plan, we have made £520 million available to improve access and expand general practice capacity during the pandemic. This is in addition to £1.5 billion announced in 2020 to create an additional 50 million general practice appointments by 2024 by increasing and diversifying the workforce.”
