How Locum Agencies Can Help To Fill the Gaps in Out-of-Hours GP Rotas

Due to the growing GP recruitment crisis, as many as 60% of out of hours healthcare providers are struggling to fill empty spaces in their GP rotas.  As they are failing to fill shifts, many out-of-hours providers are also failing to meet national quality requirements.

In light of the increased ‘in-hours’ workloads of GPs, combined with the rising costs of indemnity insurance, the recruitment of out-of-hours GPs is becoming progressively more difficult. Many GPs are simply too tired from their normal working hours to accept extra out-of-hours shifts, whilst even finding agency staff to cover these shifts is becoming difficult.

Due to indemnity fees spiralling almost constantly upwards over the past 2 years, for many doctors, out-of-hours shifts are simply not financially feasible. If GPs are to work 30 out-of-hours sessions a year, if they are to work anymore shifts, they must work for nothing until they achieve 50 out-of-hours sessions just to be able to pay the indemnity premium. This has become a huge problem, as it is actually costing doctors to work out-of-hours.

For many GPs, in addition to the financial implications of working out-of-hours sessions, they are simply too tired to commit to working further hours after a long day’s work. With the huge workloads of many practices, and the sheer volumes of patients and paperwork that they must face every day, doctors don’t want to work as out-of-hours GPs as they will not be able to provide the high quality of care that patients are entitled to.

One the main problems facing many providers of out-of-hours healthcare is that they prefer to employ locally based GPs with a familiarity for local health services in a particular area, however, fewer and fewer GPs are interested in working out of hours. They must therefore turn to locum healthcare providers.

Locum agencies are able to find the right candidates to match each particular GP placement. Some locum GP candidates may prefer to work out-of-hours shifts as they allow them to be more flexible. Due to the high wages paid by locum agencies, the financial implications of working out-of-hours are less for locum GPs. Locum Select, a specialist locum healthcare recruitment agency based in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, are one of the highest payers for out-of-hours shifts.

If you would like to find out more about the GP locum service provided by Locum Select, whether you are a GP looking for out of hours locum work or you are a healthcare provider with temporary vacancies, feel free to telephone Locum Select on 0121 308 5125 or visit the Locum Select website.

Are GPs At Breaking Point? How New Reforms Are Affecting GP Practices

Due to financial cutbacks, considerable numbers of patients could be without a family doctor within the next few years, as many surgeries are faced with possible closure. It has become commonplace in some GP practices for patients to regularly have to wait for up to two weeks just to see a GP for a routine consultation.

Due to further cutbacks that were put into action in April, the British Medical Association warns that up to 100 GP practices could face closure in as little as a few years. Many practices are no longer able to provide the level of care that patients need, with some GPs seeing around 60 patients a day. When considering the calls that GPs must make and take, the paper work that they must complete as well as home visits to patients that are not capable of making their way to the surgery, this leaves GPs no longer than 10 minutes to spend with each patient.

Some GPs have faced such pressure from government cutbacks that they have been forced to make their boundaries smaller, leaving patients from outside these boundaries to find a new GP. However, for some patients, it is not a simple task to find another local practice that can take on new patients, as a neighbouring practice may be in a similar situation where their books are too full for them to be able to take on new patients.

For some people living in rural communities, their local GP surgery closing or shrinking its boundaries could leave them having to travel quite a distance to visit a doctor, and for some patients, this may not be possible.

With a growing population, and people generally living longer, patient demand is increasing and a lot of GPs are feeling considerable strain as their patient load and work load continues to increase. This has led to larger numbers of GPs deciding to retire early, or ever increasingly, working as locum doctors, whilst some young doctors decide against general practice altogether, preferring to work in hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

Locum GPs can benefit from flexibility in their schedules, as they can choose work placements that last anywhere between just a few days or a number of months. One of the key advantages that locum GPs can have is that they are able to take longer leaves of absence, allowing them to relax for longer periods of time, unlike fulltime GPs who cannot take long periods of annual leave at a time, and therefore, often can’t find enough time to fully unwind.

With pressure building on General Practices, it is likely that GPs will need to take leaves of absence to cope with the strains of their job. In this case, practices would be required to hire a locum GP in their place whilst they are away.

To find out more about locum healthcare, you can visit the Locum Select website.