SWINDON urgently needs around 25 more GPs, two of the town’s leading family doctors have said

Febin Basheer and Elizabeth Alden represent GPs on the board of Swindon Commissioning Group – the body responsible for funding healthcare in the town.

The pair, who together have 13 years of experience as practising GPs, warned that family doctors face a ‘perfect storm’ of challenges.

A growing workload, spiralling insurance costs, negative headlines and 12-hour working days are causing more GPs to quit - and, in turn, this is putting young doctors off general practice.

Dr Alden said: “It’s a perfect storm.

“Our best guess is that we need the equivalent of 25 full time GPs.”

Nationally, general practice was facing a recruitment crisis, the pair said. Last year, NHS England pledged £2.4bn for general practice – with an ambition to recruit 5,000 more GPs in the next five years.

Dr Alden said: “We’re not very good at keeping the GPs we’ve got. The demands and pressures of the job have changed quite a lot.

“The demand on the system is increasing and the resources are decreasing.

“Trying to balance the job with family commitments can be quite difficult.”

The pair pointed to the increasing costs of indemnity insurance for GPs as a challenge for GPs. The insurance covers doctors’ costs in case they are sued by patients.

Unlike for many hospital doctors whose insurance costs are paid by their NHS trusts, most GPs have to pick up the tab for their insurance costs.

According to a poll last year by magazine website GPonline, more than half of GPs (53 per cent) paid over £7,500 a year for legal cover. One in seven (15 per cent) said they paid over £10,000.

Dr Alden, who spends part of her time teaching new GPs, said: “For two days a week I’m looking at paying around £6,000. That comes out of my salary.

“I’ve stopped doing out-of-hours work because the cost of doing it doesn’t make financial sense.”

Other practice staff, including practice nurses, were also facing pressures.

Sarah Francome, who represents practice managers on the Swindon CCG board, said: “What we see is a potential skills shortage in practice nurses. You need to train them on the job.”

Health bosses in Swindon have tried to attract new GP talent to the town. Job adverts point to Swindon’s low cost of living compared to other nearby cities and some jobs have come with teaching responsibilities – which is attractive to some young doctors.

“It’s about selling general practice,” said Dr Basheer, who trained in Swindon and now works at Victoria Cross Surgery.

“We are trying to show them a positive face of general practice.”

Despite the pressures, there are still positives to the job, they say.

Dr Alden, a GP of seven years, said: “If you’ve done something really important for somebody, at the end of the day it makes it worthwhile – that’s what sustains you.”

The pair said that more joined up services could be the way forward – with health centres offering people the chance to be seen by different healthcare professionals, such as mental health specialists or physiotherapists.

Dr Basheer said: “We know that if things are more joined up it’s probably going to be better for patients and also for staff.”