HSE to launch campaign to recruit GPs from the UK

Prime Mover

An alternative title could be "Lets rob qualified GPs from another country to make up for our lack of forward planning. Who cares if they might actually be needed to work in UK primary care."

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0129/1232923372857.html

piby

I agree and there's something wrong with a system which has thousands of young people wanting to study medicine yet we're recruiting overseas!

RobFowl

The bizarre thing is there are only 4 GP vacancies advertised by the HSE as of today (and 3 of these are for posts which are probably taken already)

Prime Mover

Rob, are they ever going to change the allocation system for GMS patients? My understanding is that a new GP can't access GMS without buying into an existing practice? I could be wrong.

RobFowl

The HSE was supposed to present a draft new GMS agreement in April 2005 but have so far failed to do so. As it stands the onlt way a doctor was become eligible to take on GMS patients is by becoming a partner with anexisting GMS doc (usually by buying in) or if a GP dies or retires a vacant list is some times advertised. If an area is deemed severly underdoctored a new GMS position is sometimes created.
It's a bit of a closed shop TBH

ZYX

RobFowl wrote: »

The HSE was supposed to present a draft new GMS agreement in April 2005 but have so far failed to do so. As it stands the onlt way a doctor was become eligible to take on GMS patients is by becoming a partner with anexisting GMS doc (usually by buying in) or if a GP dies or retires a vacant list is some times advertised. If an area is deemed severly underdoctored a new GMS position is sometimes created.
It's a bit of a closed shop TBH

Or a GP can set up in an area in Private practice. After 5 years he becomes eligible to take GMS patients. Mary Harney promised to remove this 5 year rule but I am not sure what is happening.
By the way there is no real shortage of GPs. There is no GMS list advertised in last 12 months unfilled. The number of new GPs entering workforce over next 10 years is greater than number expected to retire.

RobFowl

ZYX wrote: »

Or a GP can set up in an area in Private practice. After 5 years he becomes eligible to take GMS patients. Mary Harney promised to remove this 5 year rule but I am not sure what is happening.
By the way there is no real shortage of GPs. There is no GMS list advertised in last 12 months unfilled. The number of new GPs entering workforce over next 10 years is greater than number expected to retire.

The 5 year rule was abolished as part of the original over 70's GMS deal, there was a once off entry as part of the DVC deal in 2005 but these are both closed off now.
Discussed this with a number of colleagues today and all are mystified as they a fully qualified GP's and have great difficulty getting decent GMS positions so have to agree with ZYX

ergo

Prime Mover wrote: »

An alternative title could be "Lets rob qualified GPs from another country to make up for our lack of forward planning. Who cares if they might actually be needed to work in UK primary care."

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0129/1232923372857.html

Sure the HSE had no qualms about recruiting nurses from the Philipines and India , countries much poorer than the UK.

And the truth is that a very high percentage of the current Irish GP's working in Ireland were trained in the UK GP training schemes, schemes which have been in place long before the first Irish GP training scheme was established.

Up until this year the UK system has bailed out the lack of capacity in the Irish GP training programmes by training GP registrars who have done their hospital jobs in Ireland - that has stopped as the UK has gone to "run-through" training which mean you must do the full 3 years GP training in the UK - there will be a shortfall from this I'm sure.

And just to quote a statement from the ICGP website (admittedly from January 2008 so times have changed somewhat, but note these figures seem based on Ireland training 150 GP's per year when the actual number is 121...: )


"A report produced by the skills and labour market research unit within FAS in 2005 refers to OECD figures that indicate the ratio of GPs employed per thousand of the population in Ireland is the second lowest in the EU. The EU average is approximately one GP per thousand of the population. The Irish ratio is less than half the EU average at 0.47 per thousand. Even at an annual intake of 150 GP trainees (which is the target for 2008) there will still be a shortfall in GPs over the next 10 years. If the demand is calculated on population growth alone 2,868 GPs will be needed by 2015 – a projected shortfall of 224. This number rises to 3,643 if the demand grows in line with past growth of medical practitioners overall with a subsequent projected shortfall of up to 551. The FAS report concluded that all indicators imply that the demand for GPs will rise faster than population growth due to the development of primary care centres, the ageing population, an ageing cohort of GPs and a move towards working less hours. The need to train more GPs and the need for a GP manpower strategy is clearly illustrated by this data."

full article here http://www.icgp.ie/go/about/press_releases/551D621E-19B9-E185-832727A1824E9F44.html

dunno about GMS posts but I thought there were a lot of GP assistant jobs going and that some GP's, particularly outside Dublin, were having difficulty filling them.

as regards the UK, there actually is a shortage of jobs for qualifying GP's at the moment, there's a lot of uncertainty in the NHS and not many practices in the UK are taking on GP partners so the HSE may well find a lot of interest in its campaign

tallaght01

I think fully qualified GPs probably don't have it any tougher in the UK than our guys have.

There's a lot of difficulty in getting partnerships in the UK. Lots of people just doing salaried posts.
Partnership deals would possibly pull GPs over to Ireland.

The big demand in the UK is for places on the training scheme, as it is over here.

Mind you, as a GP in the UK you're more or less an NHS employee, and that in itself would be enough of an incentive for many people to leave :P

Svalbard

ZYX wrote: »

Or a GP can set up in an area in Private practice. After 5 years he becomes eligible to take GMS patients. Mary Harney promised to remove this 5 year rule but I am not sure what is happening.
By the way there is no real shortage of GPs. There is no GMS list advertised in last 12 months unfilled. The number of new GPs entering workforce over next 10 years is greater than number expected to retire.

I thought a very large percentage of GPs are expected to retire in the next 10 years and that the 120 new MICGPs per year will not be enough to fill the shortfall? I definitely have heard that bandied about as a cause for great concern (but, as ever, no action). I'm open to correction on this.

AmcD

There is no need to recruit GPs from the UK. As earlier posters have said, there are plenty of fully qualified GPs already in Ireland. The main problem is access to GMS lists. GPs are mostly needed in poorer areas, e.g. northside Dublin, where a lot of older male GPs are retiring. An establishing GP needs access to regular income from the GMS, even though private patients subsidize the true cost of seeing patients with medical cards. In poorer areas there are very few private patients. Most will just be over the limit for a medical card and so have very little money to spend on visiting a doctor.
GMS lists are sought after, despite their inflexible terms. At the moment the only posts being created are those where a GMS GP gets permission to create a new list within their practice- usually for somebody who already works there. I am not sure where the HSE is going to place these newly recruited GPs. General practice is a series of small businesses (which is why they work more efficiently than the HSE). Do they expect these GPs to set up their own practices? Or are they going to create a new breed of salaried GPs, in the largely imaginary primary care teams?