More GPs are being trained - but Central Bedfordshire is struggling to recruit them

More GPs are being trained across the country – but Central Bedfordshire is still struggling to attract them to the area.

Committee chair, councillor Mark Versallion (Conservative, Health and Reach) said: “We see nationally that there are actually more GPs and more nurses being produced net of retirement last year. Yet we’re struggling to recruit in Central Bedfordshire.

“The frustration for us locally is nationally we’re being told there’s more GPs and nurses but the ICB cannot recruit them in Central Bedfordshire because they go to Oxford, Cambridge and London. What do you think the solution to that might look like?”

Nicky Poulain, BLMK ICB’s chief primary care officer, replied that GP practices are responsible for their own recruitment, but support is available. She added that surveys have found that maybe half of the newly trained GPs are only prepared to work part-time.

“So you could argue you need double the number, so that’s just a bit of context,” she said.

Ms Poulain said it’s also about working together to make Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes a “great place to live and work”.

“It’s not attractive to go into somewhere where you know that you’re going to be, you know, one GP per very large number [of patients],” she said.

“There’s no easy answer, I think it’s multifaceted and we have to work on all the elements,” she said.

Councillor Versallion said: “We want to help you in solving that, and if the GP practices are left to do it on their own because that’s the constitution of the NHS then we need to do something to compensate for that.

“Maybe this local authority, and the other three, would be willing to help you financially or otherwise,” he said.

Ms Poulain said: “I would welcome that categorically about how we do that to each of the local areas.

“Because we do know from the feedback, that is very much about schools, it’s about housing prices,” she said.

Councillor Gordon Perham (Conservative, Linslade) said: “I feel that we’re just catching up with the things that we should have been doing.

“I think we’re catching up with how many doctors we probably should have had four or five years ago.

“We’re conscious that we’re getting more old people and we’re conscious that we’re getting more people moving into the area.

“They’ll need healthcare and we’ve been told that schools are very good, we find our school places.

“We’ve managed that, but we don’t seem to be able to manage healthcare and the point that I’m making is that if we’re spending a lot of time now catching up, as I said, what are we doing for the future? We need something bigger than just a little bit of tinkering,” he said.

Ms Poulain replied that it’s far from tinkering. “There’s a full program of work,” she said.

“Let’s hope it’s better in two years’ time then,” councillor Perham replied.