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<p>NHS England and Health Education England (HEE) are working together with the profession to increase the general practitioner (GP) workforce in England. This includes measures to boost recruitment, address the reasons why GPs are leaving the profession, and encourage GPs to return to practice.</p><p> </p><p>The number of doctors entering speciality training has been increasing year on year. Last year, HEE recruited the highest number of GP trainees ever - 3,473 GP trainees against a target of 3,250, a 10% increase on 2017.</p><p> </p><p>Alongside training new GPs, there is a broad offer to support GPs to remain in the National Health Service including the GP Retention Scheme, the GP Retention Fund, the GP Health Service and the Releasing Time for Care Programme. It is also now quicker and easier for GPs to return to the NHS through the National Induction and Refresher Scheme.</p><p> </p><p>Kent and Medway Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) has advised that the STP is organised into three training hubs which provide education and workforce strategy groups for each of the regions they cover. The training hubs have prioritised strategies in GP retention, recruitment and developing new models of care which maximise individual, cluster and locality resilience. Some of the initiative being used within the regions include encouraging GPs to develop specialism (GP with Special Interest), mentoring support for newly qualified GPs and facilitating GPs in developing a portfolio career.</p><p> </p><p>Medway Clinical Commissioning Group has advised it is working with Local Care Teams to develop new ways of working, including new roles to support GPs and enhance the way they utilise technology to support practices to make the best use of GPs’ time. These new ways of working have included training administrative staff in work flow optimisation freeing up GP time.</p> |