Practice staff are keeping services going in Northern Ireland purely on “good will,” their leader has said.

As the region’s local medical committees met for a conference, Northern Ireland was entering its seven month without a government or a health minister.

Senior GPs say they had reached an agreement on a review of primary care services with the previous power-sharing government, which collapsed earlier this year. GPs also voted to resign from the NHS if there was no progress – but suspended the threat because of the lack of a government.

Regional British Medical Association GP committee chair Dr Tom Black said: “We have fewer GPs per head of the population than we had in the 1950s and we now have more than 2,000 patients per Whole Time Equivalent GP in Northern Ireland.

“We have the lowest funding of all four UK countries. If we were given a 50% uplift to GP funding over the next three years we would still lag behind England by 10%.”

He added: “Workload in terms of consultations has actually decreased by 500,000 over the last two years because of the workforce crisis. Other work such as prescriptions, blood tests and paperwork continues to increase.

“Young doctors are reluctant to take up a career in general practice as they feel that the job is no longer doable.”

The conference chair Dr Frances O’Hagan added: “The crisis in our health service is now beyond politics.

“We need our politicians to act now to save general practice before we have a situation that sees us have more MLAs than we do GPs.”

* Dr Holly Dunlop has been named as Northern Ireland’s GP of the Year by the Royal College of GPs.

Dr Dunlop, from Belfast, was nominated by a patient with Crohn’s disease, Janette Connor.

Regional RCGP chair Dr Grainne Doran said: “It is important, in a landscape of significant challenges for our profession regarding recruitment and workload, to take the opportunity to celebrate success and achievements.

“It is vital that more medical students see the true potential and rewards of a career as a family doctor and understand the life-changing service they can provide for patients like Janette Connor.”