A profile of PMS salaried GP contracts and their impact on recruitment

Personal medical services (PMS) pilot sites aim to use salaried GP schemes to improve GP recruitment and retention and enhance the quality of service provision, particularly in underserved areas.

Our objectives were to (i) compare the work incentives of salaried compared with standard GP contracts; (ii) assess recruitment success to salaried posts; and (iii) describe the types of GPs attracted to these new posts.

All first wave PMS pilot sites with salaried GP posts known to be 'live' in October 1998 were included in the analysis of employment contracts and job descriptions. Information on recruitment was obtained by a questionnaire survey of PMS sites that were intending to recruit a salaried GP.

The mean full-time equivalent salary was 43,674 pounds sterling with additional benefits in terms of sick leave, maternity leave and paid expenses. Eighty-nine percent of posts were eligible for the NHS pension scheme. Posts were mainly full time (40.8 hours per week). GPs were responsible for providing services equivalent in scope to general medical services. One-fifth of contracts freed GPs from out-of-hours responsibility and most freed them from practice management. Forty-three of the pilot sites actively recruited to fill 63 salaried posts, which involved a total of 51 recruitment 'rounds', with some pilots advertising more than once. There were 291 applications. The median number of applicants per post was three and the median time to recruitment was 6 weeks. Eighty-five percent of sites were satisfied with the quality of their applicants and 64% with the quantity. Eighty-five percent of applicants previously had been working in general practice, most in locum or salaried posts. Applicants tended to be young and male. Sixty posts were filled.

Salaried contracts offer positive incentives to recruitment in terms of reduced hours of work and freedom from administrative responsibility. Recruitment success was similar to that achieved by inner city practices generally. This modest achievement might be enhanced by the addition of professional development schemes and increased flexible/part-time working.