GP cover across Scotland falls despite rise in demand
The number of GPs working full-time across Scotland has slumped in the face of increasing patient demands, a new report has revealed. Now little over one in three GPs work a full week, meaning there has been a drop in working time equivalent (WTE) cover in recent years. Today’s Primary Care Workforce Survey for 2017 also stated nine in 10 practices have been forced to use locum cover in the last 12 months, while a quarter of surgeries have vacancies. The overall GP vacancy rate increased from 1.7 per cent in 2013, to 5.6 per cent last year. A third of GPs are aged 50 or above, the report added, with older doctors more likely to cover out-of-hours shifts than their younger counterparts. The survey, which takes place every two years, is the latest indication of a general practice crisis under the SNP. Last year, the Scottish Conservatives launched a Save Our Surgeries campaign to reinforce the importance of local family doctors to the NHS as a whole. The campaign aims to secure a greater proportion of health funding for GPs, and expose the SNP’s failure to properly plan for the future when it comes to GP training and recruitment. Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Miles Briggs said: “This survey paints an extremely bleak picture for GP surgeries right across Scotland. “Under this SNP government, general practice is on the sick list. “Practices are continually struggling to fill vacancies and cope with the increasing demand which comes from an ageing population. “The SNP should have seen this coming, but instead sat on its hands and let this crisis unfold. “This alarming survey underlines the importance of our Save Our Surgeries campaign, which aims to reinstate the role of GPs as a vital cog in our health system. “If general practice is not fit for purpose, the whole NHS suffers.”