LOCAL health centres have reported they are having no trouble filling general practitioner vacancies.

This bucks a national trend, showing that a third of GP practices in England have been unable to fill vacancies in the last 12 months.

The figures, released last week by the British Medical Association, show that patient safety is being put at risk by unmanageable levels of workload in general practice.

But it appears that this strain hasn’t hit the services offered at our local health centres.

A spokesperson for the Devon Local Medical Committee has confirmed that GP practices in Kingsbridge and Salcombe currently have no GP vacancies.

And there are currently no GP vacancies at either Chillington or Modbury health centres.

Sue Sharp, practice manager at the Redfern Health Centre in Salcombe, said: ‘I know places are struggling to fill GP vacancies, but we’ve been lucky. We haven’t been affected by this.’

Across England, the poll has shown only one in eight GP partners reported not needing to fill a gap in their workforce.

The report also shows there was a strong relationship between GPs’ workload and the ability of their practice to fill vacancies.

More than four in ten GP partners who described their workload as excessive and significantly impacting on care also report being unable to fill vacancies, compared to only around one in seven of this group who say their practice has been able to fill vacancies within a reasonable timeframe.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA GP committee chair, said: ‘It is deeply concerning that so many GPs are reporting that their practices effectively have permanent holes in their workforce, which they are unable to fill. In addition to this, only a small number of GP practices are operating with no vacancies, while the vast majority of GP services are suffering from constant shortages of GPs.

‘It is clear that the crisis is so bad that general practice is being kept afloat by the essential help of locums who are stepping in to provide day-to-day services to patients.

‘These chronic shortages come despite government promises at the last election to recruit 5,000 more GPs, a pledge that has failed to materialise.’

‘As these figures demonstrate, those practices with long-term vacancies are also those struggling with unmanageable workload, leaving many GP services struggling to provide even basic care to their community,’ Dr Nagpaul added.