RECRUITMENT numbers for specialist trainee doctors in East Lancs have dropped after trainees took £20,000 payments to study elsewhere.

For the last 10 years, the East Lancashire GP Speciality Training Programme, which covers East Lancs and Blackburn with Darwen CCGs, has offered training placements for 30 new GP trainees every year.

Last year, it was increased to 38 trainees but changes to the recruitment process have led to numbers dropping.

In a report to East Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group’s primary care committee, primary care development manager Lisa Cunliffe said: “At the request of Health Education England North West (HEE), the East Lancashire programme was asked to increase its annual intake to 38 GP trainees.

She said although the number of training posts on offer locally had been increased, changes by HEE to the GP recruitment process and the introduction of the HEE-funded Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme (TERS), recruitment numbers for the East Lancashire programme had dropped over the last couple of years.

TERS offers a one-off payments of £20,000 to GP trainees prepared to train in selected areas.

She added: “Programmes in central and south Manchester have remained extremely popular for GP training, and continue to fill all their vacancies, and TERS has meant that the Blackpool and Lancaster programmes able to offer these placements have been able to fill all their vacancies, often with trainees who would normally have chosen to train in East Lancashire.”

An allocation of 15 new GP trainees are scheduled to start the East Lancs training programme next month.

And the introduction of a second round of recruitment for GP trainees to start in February each year has given East Lancs the opportunity to increase its intake.

A further 25 placements have been offered to potential recruits with a view to start training in February 2019.

Earlier this year, Blackburn with Darwen Clinical Commissioning Group heard the borough struggled to attract new doctors to the area.

A CCG primary care committee meeting heard several initiatives had been unsuccessful.