Half a million pounds will be spent trying to attract GPs to work in the most deprived areas of the county.

Health leaders approved funding for a pilot scheme to get more doctors to work in Medway, Swale and Thanet.

The plans to spend £250,000 over each of the next two years were approved during a meeting of the CCG’s primary care commissioning committee on March 17.

According to a report presented to the Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), the county’s patient to GP ratio ranges from around one GP for every 1,600 patients in the best provided for areas, to one GP for every 7,000 in the “most challenged” areas.

The national average as of September last year was one for every 2,200.

According to NHS Digital figures, Chatham’s Princes Park Medical Centre is second worst in the county with 13,120 patients per GP while Swale’s Iwade Health Centre is third with 10,538 per doctor.

Data shows there were almost 13% fewer GPs practising in the county in March 2021 compared to March 2016.

It also revealed there were 1,960,675 patients registered at GP practices in the county at the end of January – along with the equivalent of 880 full-time GPs.

Across Kent and Medway, there is an average of 9,512 patients registered at every practice.

Dr Simon Dunn, a GP in Herne Bay who serves on the CCG’s governing body, said: “Unsurprisingly, the areas we are concentrating on here is areas of deprivation and we know it’s hard to attract people to work in these places and there’s proportionately more work to do per patient in these areas as well.

“Clearly Medway, Swale, and Thanet are not the only areas of the county that are facing deprivation and are struggling to attract GPs, but if we can make this work, if we can make this make a difference, then we can maybe look at spreading it across the other areas that are struggling to get GPs in.”

The CCG has been looking to set up financial packages as well as working with councils to see how they can support new GPs with childcare and school places as incentives for people looking to locate in the areas.

Dr Dunn said the move would support employing 20 GPs.

'The areas we are concentrating on here is areas of deprivation and we know it’s hard to attract people to work'

Whilst the majority of the funding will go to the doctors themselves, some will go to practices.

The CCG is also working to develop schemes to support specialists in “coastal medicine" to address specific health needs facing seaside communities.

Practices will also be asked what kind of support they can offer in terms of hours and training packages, and communications will be developed to try and publicise these areas as places GPs would want to locate to.