The "wrong doctors"

Dr Sarah Wollaston, the chair of the health select committee and a former GP, has said that there is a “huge bias” in medical schools in training people to be hospital doctors rather than GPs, for which there is a huge shortage, especially in rural and deprived areas. She said, “We train too many doctors out of medical school to become acute specialists or which there are no jobs, and yet in general practice we’ve got huge vacancies”. She said that in 2002 there were 2,500 more GPs than hospital doctors but in 2012 there were 6,500 more hospital doctors. She noted that the NHS priority is to manage chronic conditions, such as diabetes, arthritis and asthma, which represent 70% of NHS work.