York needs more family doctors

New figures reveal GPs in York and North Yorkshire have an average of 1,538 patients on their books.

But Dr Tony Sweeney, chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) in York, said the city's GPs could actually be faced with coping with 1,700 to 1,800 patients. The BMA recommends that family doctors should have a maximum of 1,500 people under their care.

Dr Sweeney, a GP at Abbey Medical, in Tang Hall, said North Yorkshire's overall figures were diluted because of rural practices who have smaller patient lists.

"The figures speak for themselves," said Dr Sweeney. "We need to make being a GP a more attractive branch of medicine. The number of consultants has increased over the last few years, but the same is not true of GPs.

"At the moment there are huge pressures on time because of list sizes. If we had lower lists, we would be able to spend more time with patients."

Last month, the Government predicted GP numbers would continue to rise, after exceeding its target for the number of doctors in training. Statistics published by the Department of Health confirm there has been an increase in GP numbers.

At the end of 2002, the latest period for which figures are available, there were 1,065 GPs in the North and East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire Health Authority area, the equivalent of 65 doctors for every 100,000 residents. Twelve months earlier, the total was 1,039 - or 64 for every 100,000 patients.

BMA, the group representing doctors nationwide, sounded a note of caution about the GP increase. Dr John Chisholm, chairman of the BMA's General Practitioners Committee, said: "There does at last seem to have been quite a substantial increase in GP numbers.

"But the increase is well short of the Government's own target and a very long way indeed below the 10,000 extra GPs which the BMA and the Royal College of GPs jointly calculated were necessary to deliver the NHS Plan."

Updated: 08:49 Thursday, April 29, 2004