Pulse: The five stages of GP

Pulse launches an investigation into GP recruitment, analysing each stage of the GP career. We scrutinise efforts to improve training recruitment, and how many trainees end up as full-time equivalent fully trained GPs.

Pulse asks why GPs in the early stages of their career are leaving the profession and reducing hours. And we look at retirement numbers, and the potential timebomb of an ageing workforce. We then ask how the Government’s recruitment plan will support efforts to increase the number of GPs.

We also examine the issue of IT outages, and how it affects GP practices and patient care. We hear stories about how GPs have had to resort to pen and paper for days at a time, or been unable to access patient records with vital information around prescriptions.

Elsewhere, we have a casebook on skin care in the elderly, clinical clangers on ulcer swabs and a therapeutics update on continuous glucose monitoring. We also give tips on recording GP appointment data.

There is also the latest in our Art of Diagnosis series – can you spot the clues in a self portrait as to how the painter died?