'Shameful!' Dr Renee Hoenderkamp tears into NHS for 'outsourcing foreign GPs' who can 'work from the beach': 'Nonsense'

The NHS is hiring foreign doctors from countries such as Australia, India and Malaysia to treat patients from home as part of a new scheme.

The initiative is part of the NHS's 10-year plan, looking to "free up" GPs in Britain and reduce appointment waiting times.

The scheme has been accused of "offshoring people’s health to call centres abroad" and allowing the GPs to "work from the beach".

Delivering her verdict on the scheme, Dr Hoenderkamp fumed: "It's a ridiculous idea, and I'll tell you why it's a ridiculous idea. It ignores two very important things. On the one hand, patients and what patients want. Patients have a right under the NHS charter to demand to see a GP in person. So what do we do? Fly them out to India, Australia. It's ridiculous from that perspective.

"And I know every day that if people want to see me, you have to see them. Sometimes you have to see them anyway because you can't do it by phone, and I would always argue that you can do lots by phone."

She revealed: "The most complaints that the GMC (General Medical Council) gets about GPs are when a GP has not laid a hand on the patient.

"The other really important thing is we have unemployed GPs in the UK, 15 per cent of GPs currently are unemployed, they cannot find work.

"And 56 per cent of them, and I am one of them, cannot find as much work as they would like to do.

"Four in five locums, that's me, cannot find extra shifts anymore.

"Three years ago I could have got them every single day, but no longer. Why? Because GPs don't have the space, they don't have the funds to open up extra rooms in their practices, and also they now employ in physician associates to be GPs.

"And the problem with that is that they call it a GP appointment, and that looks like the figures are getting better, but actually the patient isn't seeing a GP.

"So why would we have to outsource jobs abroad when we have plenty of GPs here who would take those jobs? It's a non-starter, and it's shameful that we're even thinking about it to massage some figures."

Disagreeing with Dr Hoenderkamp, fellow Saturday Five host Cai Wilshaw argued that the NHS needs "urgent solutions" to the waiting list crisis.

He told GB News: "Look, this is all part of the NHS's ten-year plan, and one of its aims is to increase clinical capacity in creative ways.

"Now we talk so much on this show about Britain being broken - immigration, health care, public services in their entirety are broken, now we need urgent solutions. We need to think the unthinkable.

"Reform itself has said this. In terms of the economy, they've said that we need to ask the big questions, think creatively to fix difficult, difficult problems, so I welcome this."

He explained: "Most of the people involved in this trial, and it is a trial, of course, I'm sure it won't go ahead unless it works.

"Most of the people involved are UK doctors anyway, people who have moved away and want to maybe help pick up the slack. What will they do? Principally triaging patients, reviewing lab results and phone consultations, I don't think that's a big stretch.

"If it helps solve some of the slack that we clearly have in the healthcare system, bring some waiting lists down, and still provide GPs the opportunity to see people in their community as is, of course, the number one choice, then so be it.

"I welcome the trial. I think it's a great idea and if they're doing it from the beach, then great as long as they do their job."

Hitting back at Cai's response, Dr Hoenderkamp swiped: "Excellent words from somebody who clearly has no idea what it is like to be a GP day to day.

"The thing is, other people can't triage your results because you ordered those tests for a reason, so you might have a completely different view on them to another doctor. What is acceptable for you might not be acceptable for another doctor, so you ship it out, then you've got to ship it back and that GP's still got to do it anyway.

"And why on earth would we use doctors who have chosen to go abroad, whether British or not, to reduce waiting lists when we have up to 20,000 unemployed ones here, right here in the UK.

"Why? How does it help to ship the workload out? This is nonsense and you know it."