It is time to give GPNs the recognition that they deserve

Thought I would share some interesting facts; General Practice Nurses (GPNs) are delivering 84 million consultations per annum.

As of March 2023, there were 16,853 full time equivalent (FTE) Nurses working in General Practice (GPN) in England; an increase of 2% (391 FTE) against the March 2019 baseline. The biggest loss in FTE can be seen for GPNs whilst Advanced Nurse Practitioners (APs) account for the biggest increase.

We could hypothesise that this rise in AP numbers is due to GPNs wanting to progress to AP or with a cynical eye, is this rise due to APs now able to be employed under the ARRS scheme?

Although there are pockets of small growth in the totality of GPNs across primary care, significant issues around retention and development remain.

Within the last year we have had the Fuller stocktake report and the Sonnet report both highlighting the contribution that nursing makes in primary care.

It's good to see in print what we already know about general practice nursing. And the plans to recruit more GPNs should be celebrated, however, without investment in the infrastructure I am not sure how effective this will be