HEALTH bosses are drawing up plans to cope with a cut in the number of GPs working in the county.

Practices are preparing for a number of near future  retirements and new GPs are not coming forward to fill vacancies.

Two rural surgeries already face closure because they don’t have the doctors to work in them.

Seven other practices are currently advertising vacancies.

Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), which buys and shapes the county’s health and care services, says it is “acutely aware” of GP recruitment as an issue.

CCG chair Dr Andy Watts acknowledged a  shortage of trainees available to fill vacancies in the county’s  practices, with a number of established GPs approaching retirement.

While the exact number of retiring GPs was not known, the CCGs projections put the county figure at higher than that faced nationally.

As such, the CCG is preparing a workforce plan, starting with a profile of local practices to get a better picture of the  GP population.

Recruitment of nurse practitioners and GP assistants  is being stepped up to ease present and projected pressures.

Dr Richard Dales, Secretary of the Local Medical Committee said it was equally important to look at retaining GPs already working in the county.

“We need to ensure that there is sufficient investment in practices to ensure workloads are sustainable going forward, red tape is minimized and GPs and their practice staff have the opportunity to give each patient the time and access to appointments they need,” he said.

NHS England confirmed that it is looking at the county ‘s GP numbers “very carefully” with a number of GPs approaching – or having reached – retirement age.

Sue Price, Director of Commissioning (Arden, Herefordshire and Worcestershire) at NHS England said seven county practices were currently advertising vacancies practices with recruitment, particularly to rural practices, proving difficult.

In August, NHS England took a decision to shut the surgeries at Eardisley and Pembridge because they didn’t have doctors to work in them.

Both surgeries are branches of Kington Medical Practice (KMP).

The closure option emerged out of talks between NHS England, the CCGand KMParound issues raised about access to the branches and the challenges in recruiting doctors for them.

It is proposed that patients from both will transfer to KMP and may have access to free transport to and from the surgery – an initiative currently under negotiation.

KMP is also looking at technology to  save patients from travelling when a physical examination isn’t required.

The closure proposal is coming to the end of a three month consultation phase.

KMP won’t be among the “hubs” for the county’s seven day-a-week GP service that – in its initial stage – will focus on Hereford (Walgrave House),  Leominster (Marches/Westfields) and Ross-on-Wye (Pendeen).

In April, the Hereford Times reported Hereford based Taurus Healthcare had secured £2.7 million to be spent over 12 months on a pilot scheme of 17 new projects – including seven day 8am to 8pm GP access, subject to a 12-month evaluation by the CCG.

Taurus is actively advertising monthly to recruit clinicians.

Managing Director Graeme Cleland said that, to date, there has been “some genuine interest” with a small number of quality applications.

“We  are already working on a small number of quality  applications. A big part of our recruitment drive is to create a team that will ultimately be in a position to support the practices and their patients throughout the county. There are a large number of GP vacancies across the UK, and Taurus Healthcare are innovating to attract the best quality candidates to our county,” he said.