A NEW initiative aimed at persuading more family doctors to work in the North-East has been launched.

With growing concerns about a looming GP recruitment crisis, NHS Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield Clinical Commissioning Group has launched the GP ‘Career Start’ scheme which is offering ten salaried GP posts.

Dr Stewart Findlay, chief clinical officer for the CCG, said: “It is important that we continue to attract highly qualified GPs to our region. We live in a beautiful part of the country and we need to use this as a marketing tool to attract the best candidates possible to our area.

“The GP ‘Career Start’ scheme will help us to do that. We hope that after completing the first two years of these salaried posts that the candidates will be ready to take the next step to partnership in a practice in our area.

“High levels of GP retirement are anticipated in the next two to five years, so, planning ahead for us is vital. Our practices are keenly aware of this and want to ensure that these posts will allow candidates to flourish.”

The CCG is made up of 40 member practices that serve a population of 272,000.

Earlier this year Dr John Canning , a Middlesbrough GP who sits on one of the British Medical Association’s national committees, said the region was heading for a ‘double whammy’ caused by a shortage of newly qualified doctors choosing to become family doctors and increasing numbers of older GPs taking early retirement.