Health Education England (HEE) has announced that trainee GPs who accept a placement in the most severely under-recruited areas in England will be given a ‘golden hello’ of £20,000 at the start of the training placements.

The lump sum will be given to 109 trainees who train in the seven areas with the lowest GP training fill rate, which include Blackpool, Lincolnshire, the Isle of Wight, East Cumbria and the Lake District.

Prospective trainees who applied for the first round of GP training for the August 2016 intake have been offered the opportunity to apply for 109 bursaries by 12 February. However, if they fail to complete their placement, they will have to pay the money back.

HEE highlights the fact that schemes are struggling to recruit as a consequence of their remoteness from large cities, but say that trainees often rate the quality of training more highly in these areas, with many candidates choosing to stay on after training.

However, GP leaders say that there should be greater incentives, such as paying off student loans, to make a real difference, with one insisting that it is not just about getting a trainee to cover an under-recruited area. She added that doctors will only consider a career as a GP if they see it as something that is positive, which it is not at the moment.

NHS England countered this view, saying that the body is determined to tackle the real problems that exist in certain parts of the country, so it is working with the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) to trial the bursaries following the success of a similar scheme in Leicestershire.