Radical reform of the NHS will create a rise in demand for GPs, according to healthcare recruiter Your World.

Yesterday, health secretary Andrew Lansley presented draft legislation of ‘The Health and Social Care Bill’, which paves the way for GPs to take control of most of the NHS budget from 2013.

Mike Burdett, consultant at Your World, says: “I believe that by abolishing primary care trusts (PCTs), more procedures that used to be confined to hospitals will increasingly be done by GPSIs – GPs with specialist interests.

“A lot of GPs have very good hospital backgrounds and can bring this to the front-line treatment of patients. This will be much more convenient for patients and free up hospital consultants for the trickier procedures.

“I also anticipate increased demand for GPs in general, to take over appointments while the consortia of GPs handle the management and administration side of things. It may also lead to an increased demand for nurses as GPs will require more support. With a general shortage of both GPs and nurses, these changes could make the skill shortages even worse.”