30 January 2017
RCGP Welcomes NHS GP Health Service
Responding to the launch of the NHS GP health service, and news of developments in NHS England's GP Career Plus scheme, Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, said:
“Being a GP can be an incredibly stressful job, so it’s no wonder that the intense resource and workforce pressures currently facing our profession are increasingly taking their toll on the mental health and wellbeing of family doctors.
“GPs and GP trainees have been crying out for a service like this new GP NHS Health Service for some time, so this is an incredibly welcome development – and it was a key pledge in NHS England’s GP Forward View – as we strive to ensure we have a healthy workforce who can deliver the best possible, safe patient care to over 1.3m patients everyday.
“We are also delighted to see the pilot of the GP Career Plus scheme being rolled out across England – something spearheaded by the College as we outlined five ideas to better retain the GP workforce in a letter to the Secretary of State for Health last year.
“Experienced GPs have so much to offer our profession and our patients, and incentives to keep them practising on the front line of patient care for as long as possible will be to the benefit of general practice, the wider NHS and most importantly our patients.
"We now need to see similar schemes - as part of wider commitments to increase investment in general practice and build GP numbers - in Scotland, Wales and NI."
Further Information
RCGP Press office: 020 3188 7574/7575/7633
Out of hours: 0203 188 7659
press@rcgp.org.uk
Notes
The Royal College of General Practitioners is a network of more than 50,000 family doctors working to improve care for patients. We work to encourage and maintain the highest standardsof generalmedical practice and act as the voice of GPs on education, training, research and clinical standards.