UPDATE: |This is how many new GPs the north west will get as patients struggle for appointments News

‘Unnecessary red tape was preventing practices from hiring newly qualified GPs’, meaning more than 1,000 were due to graduate into unemployment in summer last year, the government has said

The government has revealed how many GPs will be joining surgeries across the north west in a recruitment boost.

According to new figures, an extra 1,503 GPs have been recruited across England through a hiring scheme since October 1.

And there will be 270 joining GP practices in the north west.

The government says the recruitment drive will ‘help end the scandal of patients in the north west struggling to see a doctor’. Politicians added that these additional GPs will help end the 8am scramble for appointments endured by patients daily.

The Manchester Evening News has reported how a combination of Covid-19 and GP shortages have led to many surgeries changing the way appointments are handed out – which can leave patients waiting weeks to see their doctor.

After the last election, the government says ‘unnecessary red tape was preventing practices from hiring newly qualified GPs’, meaning more than 1,000 were due to graduate into unemployment.

At the same time, there were also 1,399 fewer fully qualified GPs than a decade prior, ‘showing how years of underfunding and neglect had eroded GP services’, according to an announcement by the Department of Health and Social Care.

Dr Helen Wall, a GP in Bolton, told the M.E.N. that surgeries started offering more same-day appointments during the pandemic to keep a tight control on the numbers of patients and the types of conditions coming into practices. This was to comply with infection prevention measures.

That created a shift in demand, with patients facing delays across the NHS system keen to be seen as soon as possible.

“At my practice, we do get asked a lot why our routine appointments are so far in advance and all I can really say is if you are really ill and we really need to see you, then we will see you much sooner. We don’t turn anyone away,” said Dr Wall.

“We don’t do that 8am rush, where everyone calls at eight and if they’ve not got an appointment by ten past then they just have to find somewhere else. If you ring on that day and you are unwell, we will see you.

“But the consequence of that is we have to ringfence a lot of the appointments for on the day availability, so our routine appointments get further back.”

The pressure on GP services, and the ‘understandable’ frustrations patients direct at NHS staff, is driving doctors away from the NHS – only feeding demand-capacity problems. Limited NHS funding, along with the upcoming rise in National Insurance paid by employers, has meant practices cannot afford to hire new GPs to meet that demand.

That has even left some GPs out of work, says Dr Wall.

“People want to see GPs, but GPs are actually struggling to find work which is bonkers,” says Dr Wall. “Until we get back to having a solid number of GPs and some handle on the demand, we are just going to stay in this position where we’re fighting the fire and not having that family continuity of care that we all want from GPs.

“The bottom line is there’s only so many doctors, there’s only so many appointments, and there’s only so many hours in a day.”

Last year, the Department of Health and Social Care added GPs to the additional roles reimbursement scheme (ARRS) and provided an extra £82 million in funding.

Previously ARRS would fund various roles within primary care to expand the workforce, including pharmacists and paramedics – but GP jobs were excluded. Expanding the scheme to include GPs means they can be recruited more quickly and practices will be given more money to hire doctors.

Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, said: “Rebuilding our broken NHS starts with fixing the front door. We inherited a ludicrous situation where patients couldn’t get a GP appointment, while GPs couldn’t get a job. By cutting red tape and investing more in our NHS, we have recruited an extra 1,503 GPs into general practice to deliver more appointments.

“The extra investment and reforms we have made will allow patients to book appointments more easily, to help bring back the family doctor and end the 8am scramble.

“It is only because of the necessary decisions we took to increase employer National Insurance that we are able to recruit more GPs and deliver better services for patients. The extra investment and reform this government is making, as part of its Plan for Change, will get the NHS back on its feet and make it fit for the future.”

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The government says other new reforms include that GP surgeries must now allow patients to request appointments online throughout working hours from October. This will ‘free up the phones for those who want to book over the phone, and making it easier for practices to triage patients based on medical need’.

More patients will also be able to book appointments with their regular doctor if they choose to, ‘to bring back the family doctor’, the government announcement also adds.

But this could pose a problem for practices still short of GPs. As the country marked the fifth anniversary of the first pandemic lockdown, Dr Wall told the M.E.N. about the impact of many surgeries making those digital changes for Covid: “As we’ve gone digital, we’ve become more accessible. By trying to fix the very problem that we were struggling to cope with – demand – we’ve increased it.

“People contact us now for much more minor things than they would have done previously, because they can fill an online form in or they can do something digitally, reply to a text message.

“We had online consultations during Covid and people would send us an online medical form at 3am and say they had a sore toe. Then when you would call them at 11am, they’d say, ‘well, it’s better now. I forgot I even sent that in.’

“It’s Amazon Prime culture. You can, so you will.

“Once people become used to a certain level of access and service, how do we ever go back from that? It’s like saying Amazon Prime finishes today and you’re never going to be able to get your parcel the next day again.”