Funding for new GPs cut

Patients are facing a new battle to find family doctors after a sudden cut in funding for new GPs.

The Evening Standard can reveal that health chiefs are scaling down efforts to recruit extra doctors despite desperate shortages in some areas.

The decision means dozens of vacancies at GP surgeries will not be filled - despite a queue of qualified young medics waiting to take up the jobs.

Today senior doctors warned that the cuts would have a devastating impact on patients - making it even more difficult for them to register with a GP.

They labelled the move "astonishing" and "ludicrous", and called on health chiefs to reconsider.

The budget for training young medics to become GPs is to be cut by £100 million this year. It is the first time the government has reduced funding for GP training, and means more than 50 vacancies for young doctors in London this year will go unfilled.

Hundreds of young doctors nearing the end of their training applied to take up the posts. Applicants must already have completed nine years of medical training and need just one further year of training in a GP practice to become a fully qualified family doctor.

But this year dozens of candidates whose applications were approved by interviewers were rejected at the last

minute because of budget cuts.

Figures obtained by the Evening Standard show that the London Deanery - responsible for rubber-stamping new GP appointments - was forced to turn down 64 candidates highly recommended by interviewers.

A total of 340 young doctors were offered posts - 23 less than last year. At least 50 GP surgeries approved to take on trainees will have unfilled posts this year.

GP trainer Dr Janine Smirl, who vets candidates hoping to join practices, said: "This is an absolutely ludicrous situation. London has a desperate shortage of family doctors, and these young medics could be GPs within a year. Yet they are being left without jobs. It just doesn't make any sense."

Until now, health chiefs have made huge efforts to honour a key election pledge by increasing the number of GPs in the UK by 2,000.

Doctors believe the budget for training new GPs is being cut because health chiefs have now met this target.

At least 350,000 Londoners are either currently without a GP, or registered with one who has more patients than he or she can treat.

The Department of Health today admitted changes had been made to the training budget, but insisted the Government was still committed to training new doctors.

Health Minister John Hutton said: "We have significantly increased the overall NHS training budget this year by seven per cent to £3.6billion. We have made changes to the training budget, but these will not affect our ability to train additional recruits."