England is to get a thousand GP assistants to help reduce the workload facing doctors, it has been announced.

The news was welcomed by the Royal College of GPs, which warned it should not be seen as a substitute for improving GP numbers. The GP assistants are to help with paperwork and to undertake basic tasks, such as phlebotomy, blood pressure checks and heart rate tests, NHS England said. It is also recruiting 1,250 “digital transformation leads” for general practice, charged with improving patient access, with one working in each primary care network, helping to install modern phone systems and make use of the NHS app.

NHS England national director of primary care said: “The introduction of GP assistants can reduce the time doctors spend on correspondence by up to 85%, while also carrying out basic clinical tasks such as taking patients’ blood pressure and heart rate, meaning doctors have more time to do what they care about most – treating patients – while digital leads will help practices use the latest technology to manage demand and capacity. Giving patients timely and convenient access to GPs and primary care is vital, especially during winter, which is why we are introducing brand new roles and giving GPs more flexibility to create teams that best meet the needs of their local population.”

Royal College of GPs chair Professor Martin Marshall said the roles should be “largely administrative” but would need proper training.

He said: “As their title suggests, these roles can assist GPs in delivering high quality care to patients – they are not a substitute for GPs or other clinical staff, and they must not be expected to work beyond their levels of competence. Nor must they be seen as a solution to the chronic shortage of GPs, especially when GPs will be required to oversee their work and are ultimately responsible. It is important that we see further evaluations of the impact of these roles, once they have had sufficient time to bed in. We are keen to also see an evaluation of how the role of Digital Transformation leads could help to improve patient access to primary care services. These roles could potentially play a key role in supporting digital improvements for practices and their patients, but this must also be backed by investment into digital infrastructure, alongside efforts to continue to expand the workforce. The reality is that we don’t currently have the GP workforce numbers to deliver the type of personalised care we want to deliver to patients.”