press Release on GP Recruitment

Mike Hedges AM welcomes the new Train / Work / Live GP recruitment campaign launched by First Minister

A major new campaign to promote Wales as an excellent place for doctors, including GPs, and their families, to train, work and live has been launched by Welsh Labout’s First Minister, Carwyn Jones.

Mike Hedges AM said.. ‘This is a really important announcement; I recently attend a BMA event where GP’s discussed their concerns about recruitment and retention of GP’s within the Health Service, with Assembly members. This campaign goes someway to addressing those concerns. Primary care is a vital piece of the Health Service and it is important that the number of GP’s in local practice in Swansea is increased.’

The Welsh Labour Government made a clear commitment in its Programme for Government to continue to invest in primary care and to take action to attract and train more GPs, nurses and other health professionals to Wales.

The new national and international campaign will compliment work already being undertaken by health boards to recruit staff. It will support GPs who express an interest in working in Wales, including relocating with their families, while providing helpful information on what they can expect when coming to the country.

The Campaign will:

• ·         Be aimed at medical students yet to choose a specialty as well as trainees coming to the end of their training, to encourage them to stay to live and work in Wales.  It will also appeal to recently qualified GPs, those in the early stages of their career and experienced GPs who may wish to work differently, or return to the workforce in Wales.
• ·         Include a new and easily accessible source of information on general practice in Wales with telephone and online support for those who express an interest in returning to practice in Wales. This single point of contact will also provide recruitment assistance directly to practices.
• ·         Encourage GP training in areas which have had long term difficulty filling places through the introduction of an incentive scheme.  This bonded scheme will see trainees receive a total of £20,000 on the understanding they remain in the area in which they took a training placement whilst they train and for one year of practice afterwards.
• ·         Provide a second incentive of a one-off payment of £2,000 to be paid to all GP specialty training programme trainees to help cover their final exams following study in Wales. Incentives will be in place in time for the August 2017 intake.

The Wales Deanery, alongside the Welsh Government, Welsh health boards and trusts also today announced a new Education Contract for junior doctors in Wales.  The contract, a UK first, guarantees ring-fenced time for learning written into their working week to ensure all trainee doctors in Wales will have access to a wide range of educational opportunities to support their career development.

The 2016 GMC Trainee Survey showed that Wales came top of the four nations in the UK in terms of overall satisfaction with trainee GPs ranking their experiences in terms of satisfaction, experience, induction and clinical supervision.

Details of the new recruitment campaign can be found here.