Despite all efforts to increase capacity, UK medical schools are facing genuine difficulty in recruiting sufficient GP practices to provide essential clinical placements for their medical students. In order to meet current demand, let alone the planned doubling of medical student numbers by 2031/2032,1 a radical solution is required. We believe that the only way to accommodate the recently proposed increase in medical student numbers is to make teaching medical undergraduates a mandatory requirement for all NHS general practices.

It is critical that we address this shortfall in practices to ensure that we continue to provide students with exposure to high- quality placements in general practice. At present, GP teaching constitutes just 9.2% of medical curricula in the UK,2 despite recommendations that it should constitute 25%.3 Without a significant increase in placement capacity, we risk having to dramatically reduce the proportion of teaching delivered in general practice.

Placement capacity in general practice for both undergraduate medical students and postgraduate GP trainees is at a crisis point. Practices are also under pressure to provide placements for other healthcare learners including nurses, pharmacists, allied health professionals, and physician associates. This demand is partly driven by changing patterns of patient care, but also by growing recognition of general practice as an ideal environment for facilitating patient-based learning in, among other things, clinical skills, the generalist approach, team care, and the value of longitudinal patient care.

The majority of UK medical schools are facing genuine difficulty in recruiting sufficient practices to manage current needs, let alone anticipated increase in needs.4 Simultaneously, …