Consultant and GP numbers on the up

Published: Thursday 26 May 2005
Reference number: 2005/0190

New figures published today by Health Minister, Lord Warner show that there are more consultants and GPs working in the NHS in England delivering faster, better care for patients.

There are now 7,542 more consultants and 3,331 more GPs working in the NHS than were in 1999. These staff are helping to bring about big improvements to services for patients:

· improving access – waiting times are now falling consistently so that all heart bypass operations and angioplasties are now done within three months, compared to a two-year wait before 1997

· Almost everyone in England can now see a GP within 48 hours (99.98 per cent)

· GP practices are providing higher quality services, for example over 1.5 million people suffering from diabetes and 2.5 million suffering from asthma are now receiving care to best practice standards

· more than 99% of people with suspected cancers are seen by a specialist within a fortnight of referral by their GP.

Lord Warner said:

"These figures show a continued growth in the number of consultants and GPs working in the NHS. This is having a huge impact on patients, helping them to access treatment faster and get better care.

"It is these people who are responsible for the real changes we are seeing in patient care, the falling waiting times, the improvement in survival rates for cancer and coronary heart disease and the changing role of the NHS from being a sickness service to a true health service through community based initiatives such as our stop smoking services.

“This growth in doctor numbers – and the growth announced recently for the whole NHS – provides the platform for us to deliver a patient led NHS.

“We realise that some pockets of the NHS still struggle to recruit all the staff they need, which is why we are constantly trying to make the NHS a more attractive employer through improved pay and conditions, flexible working and increased access to childcare."

Related links
Statisitcal publication

Notes to editor:

1. The number of Consultants in the NHS increased by 213 between September 2004 and December 2004.

2. The number of GPs in the NHS increased by 275 between September 2004 and December 2004.

3. The total number of Consultants in England as at 30 September 1997 was 21,474. As at 31 December 2004 this figure was 30,863- an increase of 9,389.

4. The total number of GPs (excluding GP retainers and GP registrars) in England as at 1 October 1997 was 28,046. As at 31 December 2004 this figure was 31,798- an increase of 3,752.

5. Further information about the mini-census can be found at the link provided:

One is so accustomed to spin, carefully selected statistics, misleading statistics, distorted statistics and so on from this government, that one is inclined to be distrustful. Yet since the government itself is in charge of the production of statistics, figures and explanations it is not so easy to produce a rebuttal.

Here, for the time being, are some off-the-cuff suspicions and comments:

1. I understand that it now takes less time to become a consultant. So not all consultants now would have been called consultants in 1997. The figures are not genuinely comparable. The big rise may not be what it appears.

2. The claimed rise in the number of GPs is much more modest at only 13.4 per cent since 1997. But these figures appear to be headcount figures, not 'full time equivalent' figures. More and more GPs are women working part time. So what is the change in full-time-equivalent GPs? Does the GP figure include or exclude GPs from other countries like Germany?

3. What has been the change in administrative staff, incidentally? A far bigger rise, I believe.

4. The claim that "more than 99% of people with suspected cancers are seen by a specialist within a fortnight of referral by their GP" is surprising. I was recently told by a cancer consultant that some 40 per cent of the patients at her hospital in London are not seen by a consultant but that the cases are discussed with a consultant. To a layman, there would seem to be quite a big difference.

5. Then there are all the figures which are not mentioned:

The waits for diagnostic procedures such as MRI scans which are still very long in many parts of the country.

The availability or otherwise of advanced diagnostic machines, new and better surgical procedures and the more expensive drugs.

As I have mentioned before, I visited one hospital in Miami on my recent visit there. That hospital had one of the latest 64 slice CT scanners. In Britain, only one hospital in the entire country apparently has such a machine. The underuse of many kinds of drugs from Aricept (for dementia) to Cox 2 inhibitors (for athritis) is spectacular in Britain.

GP services remain almost entirely reactive - even when it comes to the elderly. The regular health check-ups that are routine in some other countries are practically unknown here.

A physiotherapist who cares for NHS patients tells me that in her part of Hampshire, provision of NHS physiotherapy has significantly deteriorated in recent years.

I would be grateful for comments - favourable or otherwise - from medical practitioners on what they consider to be the reality of the new, well-funded NHS.

UPDATE 15/6/05

Comment from one doctor quoted in the Guardian today in an article about hip fractures:

Most patients requiring a so-called neck-of-femur repair to correct the injury are older women, and most already have other medical things wrong with them, says Christopher Bulstrode, professor of orthopaedics at Oxford University and a council member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. "They are very difficult to anaesthetise. You can lose them because they have dicky hearts, hypertension or are suffering dehydration. We give them to the most junior surgeons; we operate in the middle of the night and, surprise surprise, they don't do very well.

The article is part of an assessment of NHS performance. It is probably valuable in assessing the performance of NHS trusts in comparison with each other. Unfortunately it is not focused on NHS preformance compared with the past or, most important of all, other countries.