Why GP Locums are important?

In the UK, there are an estimated more than 15,000 GPs working as Locums. They comprise a quarter of the general practice workforce in the region and attend to up to 36 million patients each year. A Locum is a qualified doctor who offers provisional replacement or covers sick leaves, staff holidays, or other professional commitments. Sometimes, newly qualified doctors work as locums to gain experience and get familiar with hospital environment. There are also more experienced doctors who wish to work flexibility, or doctors from overseas and retired doctors who take up locum positions.

Dr Richard Fieldhouse, a GP Locum and Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of Sessional GPs, in an interview said, “I’ve seen a jump in the number of GP partners leaving their regular practices mid-career to become locums, mostly from the sheer burden of extra paperwork and clinics they have to do, also, many more GPs these days are female. Working freelance as a locum can offer those with families a much better work-life balance.”

Although locums are skilled to the same extent as other doctors, lots of people are reluctant to perceive the stand-in. This is perhaps because locums tend to make the spotlight only when things go wrong. Though the General Medical Council didn’t gather figures about objections against GP Locums, experts believe public perception is that numbers are high.

‘This idea that locums are somehow second-rate doctors is unfair,’ says Dr Fieldhouse. ‘I hear so much about patients wanting continuity of care — which is true — but with continuity can sometimes comes complacency. If a GP is seeing a patient repeatedly about a problem, it can sometimes be hard to spot what is wrong because the changes creep up over time. A locum might walk in and spot it straight away. They may also find it easier to say a difficult thing such as the patient needs to lose weight or give up smoking.”

Deputy Chairman of the British Medical Association’s General Practice Committee, Dr Richard Vautry, concurs that sometimes considering a different doctor/opinion, whether from within the practice or somewhere else, can be a good thing.

Further, Shehnaz Somjee, a surgeon and chair of the Locum Doctors’ Association, a professional body representing 4,000 locums, state that locums or stand-in doctors are frequently subject to more careful scrutiny than regular GPs. “Locums have to prove themselves in every job. When you start a new post, all the other staff eyes your work through the microscope. If any slight mistake is made, it creates immediate alarm. I know one locum who, because of his wide experience in different general practices, was able to spot an adverse drug reaction when the patient’s own doctor failed to do so.”

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