The Royal Medical Benevolent Fund (RMBF) today announced the launch of its national research into sessional General Practitioners (GPs) in the UK. This research was commissioned as part of the charity’s Development Fund Sessional GP Project, looking into issues faced by sessional GPs on a national scale. The research is a mixed methods study (focus groups, online surveys, literature review) conducted by the Medical Education Research Group at Durham University and includes figures on the number, location and types of sessional GPs currently working in the UK.
The research highlighted that, despite significant progress in some areas, professional isolation remains a major issue for today’s sessional GPs with wide-ranging repercussions. Examples can include:
- Limited access to information about education, clinical systems and professional support structures
- Lack of opportunities for professional peer interaction, for example, to receive feedback, discuss significant events, discuss challenging cases and new clinical updates and benchmark against peers
- Those new to an area, working as locums, working for an out-of-hours service, working fewer hours or working in a rural practice likely to be most at risk of professional isolation
The research also highlighted the positive contributions resulting from national initiatives, including the GPC model contract, foundation of NASGP and national deanery conferences, but also driven by sessional GPs themselves through local sessional GP groups, locum chambers, and Self-Directed Learning Groups set up and run by sessional GPs.
RMBF Chief Executive Officer, Michael Baber, said: “At the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund we’ve known for some time that locums can be particularly vulnerable if accident or illness strikes, because they don’t have the same employment protection as their colleagues who have salaried contracts. As the leading charity for the medical profession, we’ve provided financial support and specialist money advice for doctors and their dependants in times of need and are aware at first hand of the problems that can happen to sessional GPs. As the number of sessional GPs continues to rise, it is important that these practitioners are supported both in terms of clinical education and peer support.”
RMBF Chairman, Dr Joan Trowell, said: “We would like to thank Gill Morrow and Charlotte Kergon at the School of Medicine and Health at Durham University and Dr Paula Wright for this report, which identifies that, whilst progress has been achieved in recognizing the needs of sessional GPs, more yet remains to be done. With the implementation of revalidation, there is still a need to develop systems to include sessional GPs, if their training and skills are not to be lost to the profession and the NHS in the future.
We hope that this research will highlight the issues currently faced by sessional GPs working in the UK and so encourage dialogue amongst key decision-makers in order to implement policies and structures to support sessional GPs in their careers, in the best interests of patients, the profession and sessional GPs themselves.”
