Undergraduate exposure to GPs with Extended Roles

GP with extended roles (GPwERs) may be attractive to those drawn to primary care in their medical school career but who perhaps also have specialist interests that are often associated with secondary care medicine. However, the undergraduate curriculum seems devoid of any introduction to GPwER, limiting future consideration. As final-year medical students trained in both Welsh and English institutions it is apparent that even during GP placements little information is provided about extended roles and the training available after CCT.

The shortage of GP and allied healthcare professionals is a serious problem.¹ The NHS Long Term Plan includes prioritising the increase of community-based health interventions, reducing those carried out in secondary and tertiary centres, stressing the need for more GPs, particularly with extended roles.² The duration of each clinical rotation does not necessarily correlate to the future uptake of that specialty. Therefore, increasing the awareness of GPwERs should be considered in medical schools to try to attempt to address the growing need for more GPs.³

As the number of junior doctors engaging in general practice training pathways remains low compared with other specialties,⁴ ensuring medical students are well equipped with the knowledge of job possibilities in primary care should be a medical education priority. Minor issues including the transition in name from GP with a specialist interest to GPwER are likely to deter students from exploring potential careers in general practice because of sparse and ambiguous information that is difficult to source in a time-critical period of training. This highlights that the devil is often in the detail as a 10-minute ‘GPwER GP– student appointment’ may help inspire and recruit desperately needed GPs. Heightened awareness of GPwER among medical students is unlikely to solve the staffing crisis but may be a crucial element in a concerted effort to bolster the future primary care workforce.