Just over 300 newly-qualified GPs have taken up posts under the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS), according to the RCGP chair.
Speaking at a Westminster Health Forum event this morning, college chair Professor Kamila Hawthorne said her most recent update from the Government revealed that of the 1,000 ARRS GP jobs available, just over 300 have been filled.
This means that since the £82m funding became available in October to hire GPs via the ARRS, under a third of the available roles have been taken up.
Professor Hawthorne said this latest update to the RCGP came from Ed Scully, director of primary care at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
This 300 figure does not tally with NHS England’s most recent PCN workforce data which indicated that there were 202 ‘other GPs’ working at PCNs on a salaried basis, and 85 full-time equivalent (FTE).
However, this data only runs up to 31 October 2024 and has been registering ‘other GPs’ in its figures since December 2022 – well before the introduction of GPs to the ARRS.
The RCGP chair also suggested that little has been done to make the ARRS jobs ‘desirable’ to newly-qualified GPs, despite the college’s discussions with health secretary Wes Streeting and offers to work with NHS England.
At the conference today, Professor Hawthorne told attendees her advice to Mr Streeting in the summer: ‘These jobs – they need to be so desirable that everybody wants them. They need to be jobs where they are put in one place for a couple of years, they can get their feet under the table, they can really learn and develop the confidence that they need to be a GP.
‘They’ve got the competence, they’ve got their MRCGP exams, but they need the confidence. They need mentoring, they need some protective time in order to develop their own extended roles and their own professional interests.
‘And [the health secretary] listened to all of that and said “oh, yes, that all sounds very good”. As far as I’m aware, none of that’s happened. We have asked to work with NHS England on this, but it hasn’t happened.’
On the latest ARRS GP figures, she added: ‘Of the 1,000 jobs, the last I heard, just over 300 have been taken up.
‘And despite Wes saying in our RCGP conference that these were substantive posts, many PCNs are advertising them up until the end of March 2025 which really isn’t attractive to many people.’
Pulse has contacted NHS England and DHSC for comment.
The Government announced over the summer that GPs would be added to the ARRS in a bid to hire 1,000 more doctors, as an ’emergency measure’ to tackle GP unemployment in 2024/25.
NHS England guidance later revealed that only GPs who had qualified in the last two years would be eligible for the scheme, and that the £82m allocated for GPs must used separately to the main ARRS funding pot.
The BMA has since criticised this policy, saying the amount of funding made available for PCNs to pay ARRS GPs is ‘derisory’ and ‘uncompetitive’.
