Overseas doctors will be helped to settle in Dorset in a bid to tackle the worsening GP crisis

Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group (DCCG) has said it will be recruiting GPs from European countries to relieve pressure and increasing demands. 

Steve Aylwin, senior workforce lead of the Primary Care Workforce Centre set up by DCCG said: “The Primary Care Workforce Centre is already working with Health Education England to develop a programme to recruit GPs from countries in Europe, help them settle in Dorset and support and develop them to convert the skills and knowledge they’ve learnt and apply them in our Healthcare system in Dorset.”

“We believe that these GPs will be a valuable addition to our workforce and this programme represents one of many solutions being developed and implemented.” 

It follows an announcement by Head of NHS England, Simon Stevens that the NHS would be recruiting overseas GPs on an industrial scale with an additional 2,000 overseas GPs being recruited nationally. 

Mr Aylwin said that DCCG hoped to finalise the programme in December with recruitment starting in early 2018.

Dr Nigel Watson, CEO of the Wessex Local Medical Committees and practising GP said: “More GPs are retiring and not coming into the profession. We need to address the problems with recruitment. If general practice was a better place to work we could retain GPs.”

He said he was open minded about recruitment from abroad but overseas GPs must be trained to the same high standard as British GPs and speak a very high standard of English. 

Dr Jon Orrell, a GP at Weymouth’s Royal Crescent Surgery and a Weymouth and Portland Borough Councillor said overseas doctors were vital to the NHS and Dorset’s GPs.

He said: “They will help us immensely. We have long had people from around the world including the Philippines and Germany working in the area. They fit in very well and are valued colleagues.”

“Far from causing a crisis in the health service, the NHS only works because of immigrants.” 

He added that although they receive less than 10 per cent of NHS funding 90 per cent of daily patient contact is done by GPs.

Dr Richard Vautrey, British Medical Association GP committee chair, said the announcement was a clear admission of failure from the government which had effectively conceded it could not meet its target of recruiting 5000 extra GPs without an emergency draft of doctors from abroad.

He added that a long-term solution was needed addressing low morale amongst GPs and the lack of support staff available to create a stable workforce. 

“Applying a sticking plaster by recruiting doctors from abroad can only offer a limited short-term fix, especially when there is uncertainty over freedom of movement following the UK’s exit from the EU,” he said.

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