Over half of family doctors aim to leave their profession by the time they hit 60. Why? Most say it's due to underfunding and a conveyor system of appointments according to a new study.
A conveyor belt of appointments
In BBC's Inside Out programme which surveyed 1,400 GPs over Britain found that 56% want to retire before 60.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt described the figures as "worrying" although Dr Krishna Kasaraneni, of the British Medical Association, said he was not "surprised" by them. Dr Kasaraneni suggested that "politicians across the board need to acknowledge that general practice is not resourced correctly."
32% are still planning to stay in their role beyond this age, despite 25% who have already made up their mind to leave before the age of 60.
Of those who plan to leave, they complained of a large volume of consultations, long working hours, poor pay and the way they are described in the media as reasons to retire. The volume of consultations was the biggest factor and is cited as the main reason that so few medial students are choosing to specialise in general practise.
Mr Hunt told BBC Inside Out: "The centre of gravity in the NHS for 66 years has been big hospitals. We have to change that to make the centre of gravity general practice and out-of-hospital care."
He plans to change the care given to older people in the NHS over the course of the next 5 years to give people a greater incentive to return to general practice.
Mr Hunt told BBC Inside Out: "Hospitals have been struggling to meet increasing demand. That's taken money away from services like GPs, mental health and district nurses. That's wrong and we're moving to correct that."
It costs about a quarter of a million pounds to see a student through medical school. In the three years in the run up to 2013, the amount of unfilled GP posts quadrupled.
One student at Imperial Medical School, Mitul Patel, told the programme: "The thought of a career that involves a lot of these frustrations puts you off ... The work is so stressful it's putting current and prospective GP trainees off."
Source: The Telegraph