Making it mandatory for all doctors to spend at least a year in general practice as part of their training would help ease workforce shortages, a leading UK GP says. 

Such a move would also give hospital doctors a better understanding of the challenges facing primary care, says Dr Kieran Sharrock, the British Medical Association GP Committee England deputy chair.

“One of the biggest issues that [GPs] face is inappropriate workload transfer from secondary care to primary care,” Dr Sharrock told a UK parliamentary inquiry into the future of general practice last week. 

“And one of the ways to deal with that is to make it so that everyone who works as a doctor or a nurse or any other health professional in secondary care settings has spent a good portion of time working in general practice so they understand the importance of that interface.”