Today, we’re speaking to Dr Luisa Pettigrew, a GP and Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Senior Policy Fellow at the Health Foundation.
Title of paper: Counting GPs: A comparative repeat cross-sectional analysis of NHS general practitioners
Available at: https://doi.org/10.3399/BJGP.2024.0833
There have been successive Government promises to increase GP numbers. However, the numbers of GPs in NHS general practice depend upon how GPs are defined and how data are analysed. This paper provides a comprehensive picture of trends in GP capacity in English NHS general practice between 2015 and 2024. It shows that the number of fully qualified GPs working in NHS general practice is not keeping pace with population growth and there is increasing variation in the number of patients per GP between practices. We offer research and policy recommendations to improve the consistency and clarity of reporting GP workforce statistics.
