SNP's multi-million GP recruitment scheme secures just 18 new doctors
An SNP initiative to hire more GPs has attracted just 18 new doctors in the two years since it was launched.
It has been revealed that the GP Recruitment and Retention Programme, unveiled in 2015, hasn’t even delivered a single GP in certain areas of the country.
The information was published following a parliamentary question by shadow health secretary Miles Briggs.
Ministers announced funding of £2.5 million in the summer of 2015, with the aim of securing more family doctors in rural and deprived areas.
The scheme was then re-announced in March, with the promise of a further £5 million worth of investment.
However, now health secretary Shona Robison has confirmed the project has led to five new GPs for Glasgow, seven for Tayside, and a handful in other parts of the country.
It’s the latest set of figures highlighting Scotland’s GP crisis.
Thousands of doctors have left Scotland over the past three years, while a third of GP training places are unfilled.
Within the next few years, it is anticipated there will be a shortage of more than 800 GPs across the country.
In response, the Scottish Conservatives have launched the Save Our Surgeries campaign, which aims to fill the gaps left by the SNP in recent years and secure a greater proportion of funding for general practice.
Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Miles Briggs said:
“It’s no wonder Scotland is in the grip of a general practice crisis when the SNP government fails so miserably to attract doctors to the job.
“This was launched with the promise of delivering GPs for rural and deprived areas.
“Instead, it’s led to a handful of new appointments which will barely have had any impact at all.
“Indeed, at this rate it would take this scheme almost a century to address the shortage of 856 GPs we’re expected to have.
“This is just another blatant failing of the SNP workforce planning, and the consequences on the ground are a population struggling to get a GP appointment, and those family doctors who are left feeling the strain.”