Where does the £250K figure for training come from please? How much of that is actually GP Registrar pay, for which they do plenty of service provision in addition to training time?
When I was at medical school 20 odd years ago, no-one wanted to be a GP, as it was long hours for little pay and very little respect. The government of the day negotiated a contract that removed OOH responsibility from practices, pay and conditions were improved, and GP was actively marketed as a ‘family friendly career choice’. Lots of women signed up on that basis, and by the mid-2000s GP training was over-subscribed and very competitive.
Since then, money has been clawed back by the government, and a vast amount of what used to be secondary care has been handed over to primary care, as inpatient beds have been cut to the bone whilst secondary care has become increasingly specialised. People are living longer but not healthier, so complexity and demand have increased. Therefore working conditions have deteriorated, to the point where people are leaving.
The last thing we have to tempt junior docs into the speciality is the idea that it is ‘family friendly’, although now all hospital specialities allow part time training and working too, so that’s less of a carrot. All these people saying ‘ban part time working’, most GPs would just resign from the NHS at that point, there are plenty of other places and jobs where our skills would be valued. We’re mostly still here out of a sense of duty to our patients.