Nurses, GPs and colleagues have come together during a parliamentary event to place a spotlight on the workforce crisis facing general practice and the funding needed to overturn the situation.
A new and exclusive general practice white paper was launched by our publisher Cogora in Parliament on Thursday – bringing together 12 MPs with key stakeholders and professionals from across primary care to discuss the actions needed to boost recruitment and retention.
The event was attended by representatives from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) who warned that without the right funding to be able to offer nurses fair pay and terms and conditions, general practice would ‘reach a very unstable point’.
Penned by the editor in chief of our sister title Pulse Jaimie Kaffash – and launched with the Rebuild General Practice campaign – the Cogora General Practice Workforce White Paper revealed a registered nurse vacancy rate of 23% across practices in England, as well as a 16% shortfall of GPs and 32% shortfall of pharmacists.
GP partners and practice managers informing the report warned they were struggling to recruit much-needed nurses because they are unable to match salaries given elsewhere.
Funding is the key
Speaking in Parliament, Mr Kaffash said: ‘For me, the most fascinating part was speaking to GPs, speaking to nurses, pharmacists, practice managers and commissioners who were all speaking with one voice.
‘These professionals were united in this one thing… and that one thing is funding. Funding is what we need in general practice.’
The event also heard from Dr Rachel Warrington, a GP from North Bristol who spoke on behalf of the Rebuild General Practice campaign.
Speaking to Nursing in Practice, she said that while government plans to move more care into the community are welcome, ‘we clearly need more staff to do that’.
‘Staffing levels are nowhere near enough. We need a dramatic increase in the number of nurses in primary care,’ said Dr Warrington.
A struggle to recruit nurses
Also attending the event, director of the Institute of General Practice Management (IGPM) Kay Keane, said that in line with the Cogora report findings practice managers ‘really struggle’ to recruit practice nurses due to funding constraints.
She stressed the need to ‘look after’ practice nurses and to ‘make sure we’re making it an attractive career’.
‘We can’t compete with the funding that there is in hospitals. We can’t give Agenda for Change contracts, as much as GPs and employers would want to, we’re not paid for that,’ said Ms Keane.
Reflecting on the report and the event, Ms Keane said she was pleased to see professionals from across the general practice workforce coming together.
‘All the professions are here, and we are all equal. Without any one of them, general practice fails,’ she told Nursing in Practice.
‘All of us do very, very different parts of that complicated process and we are all desperately needed.’
The RCN’s head of independent health and social care sector, Claire Sutton, agreed that it was not a case of GPs not wanting to recruit practice nurses, but it was ‘because they can’t afford to’.
Speaking to Nursing in Practice at the event, she said: ‘I think what’s really key is that funding is put in place in an appropriate way for general practices to be able to be run as the multidisciplinary team that they should be with nurses at the core of it.’
General practice teams ‘united’
RCN primary care nursing lead Kim Ball was also in attendance and welcomed the opportunity to bring general practice colleagues together.
‘I think we are seeing a shift in trajectory in the way that the whole general practice team is united in their views and that’s really promising, because together we are going to be much stronger and that’s going to resonate with each professional group,’ she told Nursing in Practice.
On the issue of nurse pay and conditions, Ms Ball reiterated the RCN’s ambitions for securing ‘ringfenced funding for our nurses, so they are equitable compared to their secondary care colleagues’.
Ms Ball warned that improved funding and terms and conditions for practice nurses, ‘general practice is going to reach a very unstable point’.
MP for Stroud and working GP, Dr Simon Opher opened the event in Parliament and said: ‘I think we could safely say that general practice and the whole NHS is in some sort of crisis.’
The full Cogora General Practice Workforce White Paper can be downloaded here
