The government has announced that it is removing the ‘red tape currently preventing GP surgeries from hiring doctors’, but this must not distract from the need for more First Contact Physiotherapists (FCP) in primary care.
The changes mean that newly qualified GPs can quickly be recruited into the NHS through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) as an emergency measure for the GP staffing crisis this year and next.
The government has said it will continue to work with the profession to identify longer term solutions to GP unemployment and general practice sustainability as part of the next fiscal event.
Responding to the measures taken to allow practices to use funding from ARRS to recruit GPs, CSP director Rob Yeldham said: 'We recognise this is a short-term solution for the GP staffing crisis but longer-term we would support the government stepping up its efforts to recruit both more GPs and FCPs in primary care.
FCP roles are currently stretched too thin and there is a considerable way to go to achieve the goal of having 5,000 FCPs working in primary care by 2030
'There is a bigger question around the funding mechanism for FCPs. ARRS may well not be the best model, but because it is linked to the GP contract it is not something we or the other professional bodies or unions representing non-physician primary care staff have had any input into.
'What is imperative though, is that the new government provides the funding to ensure workforce targets relating to all roles are met, whether through ARRS or some other mechanism.
'Investing in upskilling more physios to advanced practice level would help to fill the FCP and advanced community roles the government’s neighbourhood care commitments need.
'With MSK waiting lists at an all-time high and growing ill health related worklessness, demand has never been higher. It is vital that we expand the physio workforce in both primary and community care.'
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