08 April 2005
The government hopes to encourage more young doctors to become GPs with a new training curriculum launched this week.
The move is crucial to plans to have more care provided in the community. Many primary care trusts have developed GP-run specialist clinics, in areas such as dermatology and orthopaedics, to treat patients who would otherwise have been sent to a hospital outpatient department.
This can reduce pressure on hospital waiting lists, ensure patients are treated more quickly and closer to home, and help retain GPs bored of the routine 'coughs and sniffles' nature of much of their work.
More GPs are also needed to plug the gaps left by those about to retire – in some areas up to 50% of family doctors are eligible for retirement in the next five years. The need is acute in inner-city areas, to which many GPs came from the Indian sub-continent in the 1950s and 1960s.
The curriculum change affects the first two years of postgraduate medical training. Rather than spending all this time in hospitals, under the new foundation programme junior doctors will have a range of placements, including primary care. It is hoped exposure to general practice earlier in their career will encourage more to become GPs.
Health minister John Hutton said students would get a broader range of 'tasters'.
'We are moving to a situation where 80% of patient care will be provided in primary care environments so we want more trainees to spend time in places like GP surgeries and walk-in centres as the shift towards treatment in primary care settings rather than hospitals becomes the norm.'
Professor Sir Alan Craft, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, said: 'The curriculum will ensure that doctors going through the system are fit for the modern health care service.'
However, the British Medical Association said GP training places had been cut and called for more investment.
The need for traditional general practice was highlighted in a survey by the pollster Mori for the BMA this week. The survey of 2,133 adults showed that 75% believed their local GP surgery was more important than new-style clinics, such as NHS walk-in centres.
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