To ask if GPs are leaving NHS and why?

[CloudyYellow]

Seems like numbers are going down and it sounds like the job is unsustainable.

Training places post A level remain a key to long term increase in numbers... we allow only the thinnest slice of the student population to become Drs, demanding ultra high results plus good cv so as to restrict entry to med schools. I watched my ( comp school no graduates in family' ) nephew aim for 4 a stars a few years ago ... he did it but many other bright kids ruled out ... who would have been happily accepted for training in many of the countries we recruit doctors from. Yes that too .. low UK numbers mean we steal qualified staff from poor countries...

GPS don't really work for the NHS, or at least not immediately. The current system dates back to when the NHS was initially created and is overdue for an overhaul IMO.

@Qazwsxefv 28/56 day prescribing is absurd. Surely the CCGs have more weight in relation to these matters than the public and ought to be pushing back regarding the nonsense of it.

@Qazwsxefv I totally agree. Some of it is misplaced. Doctors surely recognise this and shouldn't be taking it personally then?!!!

My friend was a health visitor before children, she had about 7years out and when she looked at going back the only return to work courses were for general nursing. She was told she would have to do shift work as part of that- totally impractical with children and a husband working away. She is now doing something completely different.

@Parker231 thanks for the assumption that I have a cushy job as a pen pusher. I expect you think DH does too. Do you really think that highly paid roles in the public sector are cushy. What I can tell you is that the NHS and my GP practice have zero respect for the time of those who pay the high taxes to fund the bloody awful service.

I don't believe you have ever shared what your job and/or professional qualifications are. All we know is what your partner does.

It's not a tax charge, it's just there's a cap on how much you can put in your pension every year, with an overall cap.
I think its 40k a year.

When you can put 40K in your pension you've got something to worry about perhaps.
The lifetime allowance for most people is £1,073,100 in the tax year 2022/23 and has been frozen at this level until the 2025/26 tax year.

It just means they can't squirrel away as much money and therefore get taxed on it. So they opt to earn less.

The answer logically is pay them less to start with. Which you would do if you have trained as many as other countries do (as someone has said above).
One of the reasons doctors come to this country is I assume the pay.

Where to begin..
part time GP is actually 39+ hr a week FT is minimum 60+ hr per week
Excessive workload
QOF targets
stress
pressure
some practices have an oppressive culture (they are a for profit business after all)

Workload and the any number of perpetually offended looking to be aggrieved by literally anything

@keeptalkinghappytalk you don't need A stars for medicine. Most need AAA and a few AAB. You don't need a full cv as most Unis don't even read the personal statement.
The issue as has been said is number of training places, both during and after Uni. Doctors train on the job so are taught be doctors (& nurses) while working. Less of them around so can't increase training places.
GPs and all HCP are treated like dirt. So they leave. The whole thing needs a shake up and a reset if it's ever going to work again.

A hospital with and A and E but no emergency surgery or orthopaedics is not good.

it’s either because

1. they do need an A and E there but they cannot get enough staff to fill the surgery and orthopaedic slots to run a safe serviceit - so not enough doctors, nurses and theatre staff - not mismanagement but lack of staff
2. they don’t need an A and E there and that hospital is not staffed for an A and E but when it was going to be closed the public and the local MP kicked up a massive fuss and it’s kept open anyway
3. complete incompetence by the very senior nhs management who make these decisions

none of these reasons for this admitted shit show are due to doctors

also where/if the ambulance service decides to take patients is nothing to do with doctors and defiantly nothing to do with GPs. Paramedics are independent practitioners and professionals and make their own decisions. GPs have no authority over them. If as a GP I think a patient needs to go to hospital urgently I call 999 just like a member of the public does. The ambulance crew who attend will make their own independent assessment of the patient and may then decide to take them to hospital of their choice or not. Weather or not that is a good use of resources is another discussion but it’s not within the remit of GPs to change

Where is this A&E that doesn't have Consultant oversight at the weekend?

No one is saying that other professionals don't work long hours - simply that a GP working 3-4 days a week is not really taking it easy.

UCL is A* AA entry, fiercely competitive entry plus interview and M-SAT

@mumda not the case. Consultants get a tax bill now if they put too much in their pension - it's not a choice as they either opt in or out. So they opt in. But then they work more hours, get paid more and so go over their limit. Which is then taxed (twice). So they work less. They don't want to but who the hell works more for less pay ?
Even the government admits this is a stupid law and intends to change it.

@Zone2NorthLondon what is M SAT ? UCL use BMAT. A few Unis do want an A star but most don't. And you don't have to apply to those if you don't want to.

My local practice has 12 GPs and all of them are part time. I think full time GPs are now rare due to the pressures of the job and also because the pay is good enough for part time hours to live quite well on which is not true for a lot of jobs.

CCGs don't exist any more, they had yet another reorganisation into part of ICBs or Integrated Care Boards in most of England. Leaving behind, in some cases, lovely empty suites in town centre locations while all those Band 8a minimum administrators jostle for position and the best Golden Goodbye and lucrative deals with local businesses they can negotiate.

While the clinicians and AHPs and social workers and others who actually do the real work are left in despair about so many things.

UCL condition Offer 2022. And 2023 required A* AA
Theres a private uni (Buckingham) has a lower offer but the fees are astronomical

CCGs got abolished in the last (unneeded and mid pandemic) wholesale reorganisation of the nhs. It’s now ICBs and ICS and other acronyms. There too busy recruiting all the people who used to work for the CCG and designing new logos or whatever…..

but we now have (another) new health secretary so they I am sure will soon design the next top down redesign so no work will again be done….

(ccg prescribing advisor was probably for 28 day scripts because they never actually had to deal with patients who’s repeats are now due on different days of the month and are pissed off about it)

@Zone2NorthLondon but you don't need a A stars(you said your nephew strived for 4 A stars). Most Unis need AAA. So apply to those if that's what you get. Or a AAB Uni.
All Unis provide the same for medicine, they all become doctors.

B MAT Keyboard made a change for some reason

I don’t have a striving nephew, you’re addressing wrong poster
However I won’t advise my children to follow my career path…unless they really want to

@ButterflyLeg when whenever you are asked what you do and you say GP you get an earful of abuse in the hairdresser/school run/Tesco delivery driver you feel that the general population consider you to be worse than scum it’s upsettting even if you realise you shouldn’t be the target of their anger. Every patient you see is angry at you because of the system and you have to apologise and explain I didn’t want a job I would be ashamed to admit I do in public - I don’t want adoration, just a lack of abuse. I want to deal with peoples medical issues not have to apologise for the governments shortcomings 20x day

@Zone2NorthLondon sorry. Wrong person 😊. No one in our family is medical and seeing my own DD become a doctor has shown me how awful the NHS is. But she loves it and will stay as long as she can.
Never has the 'see one do one' mantra been more true.

@Qazwsxefv as a teacher I feel your pain. I believe we caused the pandemic and spent the last two years drinking gin and gardening.
I for one appreciate my GP so much. They've been amazing looking after me.