GPs in England have been offered a “new deal” by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt – as long as they sign up to seven-day opening of surgeries. Proposals for the package, which will provide help for under-pressure services, include the recruitment of 5,000 new GPs and another 5,000 support staff, including practice nurses.

In addition, financial incentives may be offered to those willing to work in the most deprived areas, while doctors who have left the profession or want to work part-time will be given more help. However, in return, GPs have been told that they need to “get on board” with Mr Hunt’s plans for weekend opening, which involves groups of practices pooling together to share the extended hours.

The proposals build on plans set out at the start of this year for NHS England to make the profession more attractive, as the NHS is struggling to recruit new doctors. In fact, the situation is so bad that more than one in 10 GP training places remained vacant in 2014.

Moreover, in a survey conducted by British Medical Association (BMA) last month, a third of those polled said they were considering retiring in the next five years and one in 10 was thinking about moving abroad.

The Government sees the shortage of GPs as a real problem considering that within five years there will be a million more people aged 70 or over. As Mr Hunt pointed out, without the help of general practice to keep the growing elderly population healthy, hospitals will become overwhelmed.
A spokesman for the BMA said that GPs were ready to work with the Government but he warned that pilots of seven-day routine working are increasingly demonstrating a low uptake of routine weekend appointments.
Therefore the BMA is urging the Government to focus on supporting practices during the day and further develop the current 24/7 urgent GP service so that patients can be confident of getting access to a quality GP service day and night.