The Royal College of GPs has called for GP practices to receive an extra £31 million so that they receive the same level of funding as hospitals for hosting medical students as part of their training

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the College, has written to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, warning that there is a huge discrepancy in funding.

She said GP practices receive on average £620 a week to host training placements, but the actual cost to the practice is about £1,000. Not only does this represent a 40% deficit, it is also about 40% less than the average amount hospitals receive to host training placements, despite the costs being the same, she warned.

In her letter, Prof Stokes-Lampard wrote: “You recently expressed concerns, which I share, that we will not reach the target set out in the General Practice Forward View for an additional 5,000 GPs by 2020; and given the challenges of retaining GPs in the workforce, I am sure that you will agree it is even more vital that we attract more trainees into the profession. Ensuring that all students have access to properly funded placements in general practice is an essential part of this.

“Many practices are struggling with unsustainably high workloads and gaps in their workforce, which has implications on the provision of safe, high-quality patient care. Expecting these practices to train and inspire the next generation of GPs without sufficient funding to do so, is simply unviable, and will put our ability to expand the GP workforce at risk.

“The underfunding of training in primary care is not limited to the future GP workforce. For example, the low tariff available for undergraduate student nurse placements is also hampering efforts to increase the pipeline of nurses to enter the general practice workforce.

“The Government’s welcome announcement of additional funds for the NHS and its intention to develop an NHS plan provides an opportune moment to remedy this longstanding and urgent funding deficit.”

Last year, the College undertook the most comprehensive survey of medical students’ perceptions of general practice to date, which found that by their fifth year, 91% of those surveyed perceived their fellow students to have negative associations with general practice, and 54% perceived doctors they have encountered on placements in non-GP specialties to be negative about general practice.

“Providing high quality training placements in general practice costs around the same as it does to place medical students in hospitals, so it should be funded at the same level,” said Prof Stokes-Lampard.

“Being a GP can be the best job in the world when we are given the time and resources to do it properly – it is challenging, intellectually stimulating and full of variety. These are the messages we need to convey – and offering high quality educational placements in general practice are the best opportunity for us to do this, but this takes resources and general practice is losing out, creating a vicious cycle.

“Investing in general practice is investing in the whole of our National Health Service.”