Streeting urged to reinstate GP training posts after delay linked to junior doctors’ strikes

Wes Streeting is under pressure to reinstate hundreds of GP training posts after the government postponed 1,000 specialty training places this year amid a row over junior doctors’ strikes. Campaigners for family doctors said the move unfairly penalises GPs and their patients over a dispute they were not part of.

The Health Secretary deferred plans to add 1,000 extra specialty training posts this year after junior doctors, now called resident doctors, refused to call off a six-day strike. Analysis by Rebuild General Practice, a campaign group, suggests about 300 of those posts would have been allocated to GP training schemes.

“It is deeply unfair that patients and GPs, who have no part in this dispute, are being made to absorb the consequences of it,” said Dr Rachel Warrington, a GP working with Rebuild General Practice. She said general practice already faces a serious shortage of doctors and losing these posts “makes a difficult situation worse”, arguing they would have helped surgeries manage rising demand and support better continuity of care.

“We urge the Government to find a way to restore these posts,” she added. The additional 1,000 posts were part of a package of 4,500 specialty training places over three years offered during negotiations aimed at ending the long-running pay row with resident doctors.

Rebuild General Practice said around a third of specialty training places created in recent years have gone to general practice, indicating a similar proportion of the deferred posts would likely have been earmarked for GP schemes. Data underline the pressure on primary care.

England has 469 fewer fully qualified full-time equivalent GPs than in 2015, despite sharp growth in patient numbers, according to figures from the British Medical Association. There were 28,895 fully qualified full-time equivalent GPs working in England in February this year, each covering an average of 2,205 patients.

Separate analysis by the Health Foundation found that for every five additional licensed GPs trained, NHS general practice gained only one extra doctor overall. The BMA estimates England will need an additional 6,500 full-time equivalent GPs by 2031 to meet rising demand.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman called the campaigners’ claims “inaccurate and misleading”. He said the 1,000 extra specialty training places “have not been scrapped and will still be delivered over the next three years, but could not be brought forward this year due to the impact of recent strike action”.

Campaigners are urging ministers to find a way to restore the posts this year. The dispute over pay for resident doctors remains unresolved, and the outcome will shape how quickly the government can expand training capacity across the NHS.