NHS boss admits filling GP roles in some areas ‘close to impossible’

Health chief tells MSPs workforce planning could be improved

Recruiting GPs in some parts of Scotland is “close to impossible”, the chief executive of the NHS has conceded.

Giving evidence at Holyrood, Paul Gray was clear that in some areas the health service did not have enough staff, as he accepted that workforce planning across the service could be improved.

But he hit back at claims from health board bosses that there is no single longterm plan for the future workforce needs of the NHS.

Tim Davidson, a regional implementation lead for east of Scotland NHS, last week told the Public Audit Committee: “There is no plan, I think, across Scotland or the UK that accurately at this stage describes what a redesigned health and social care workforce might look like for the future.”

His evidence came after The Courier revealed a much-vaunted scheme to attract GPs to Scotland had failed to recruit a single one in Fife, where 13 practices have vacancies.

Of the 18 GPs taking up posts, seven were in Tayside.

In the wake of Mr Davidson’s comments, MSPs questioned both Mr Gray and Scotland’s top doctor, Chief Medical Officer Dr Catherine Calderwood, on NHS workforce issues, amid concerns from the medical profession and opposition politicians that the NHS in Scotland is in crisis.

Former health secretary Alex Neil said “the shortage of GPs is an immediate issue” while Tory MSP Liam Kerr said: “We are sitting with a depleted workforce because no one apparently has planned for it in the past.”

Mr Gray told MSPs: “In some areas in general practice it is very difficult to recruit, close to impossible. I accept that as a fact. I am not pretending it doesn’t exist.

“I know in the Highlands they are struggling to recruit into radiology. However if we describe that all as a failure of planning that means the whole world has failed to plan because there are recruitment pressures in every health system in the developed world.”

He added: “I am not sitting here and saying there is some state of perfection in Scotland, there is not. That is why we are doing what we are doing.”

He said the NHS had been working on a national workforce plan – as opposed to only having ones drawn up by regional health boards – for “at least a year”.

He said: “There are things that we could have done better, but that is why we are doing now what we are doing.

“But I don’t agree there has been some collective failure to plan for anything.”

Labour MSP and acting committee convener Jackie Baillie said: “There’s not enough of them, they’re not in the right place or have the right skill sets.”

Mr Gray said: “There are enough in some places, there are not enough in others and I have been open about that.”

SNP MSP Colin Beattie said: “There’s nothing firm in here, it’s all things under way, under active consultation, being considered and we’re going to recirculate guidance. There’s nothing firm here.”

Picture: Gareth Jennings. NHS chief executive Paul Gray said some things could have been done better.