There is a shortage of doctors being recruited for general practice in Teesside.
Nationally, more than 540 GP practices out of 8,000 in England could be forced to shut in the next year as they all have more than 90% of their doctors aged over 60, according to the Royal College of General Practitioners.
The average retirement age of GPs is 59.
Middlesbrough Council’s health scrutiny panel invited Dr John Canning, secretary of the Cleveland Local Medical Committee, to a meeting to find out if Teesside is affected - and he said there is a shortage in the region.
Dr Canning said there are several factors affecting the number of doctors.
He said the biggest problem was recruitment and the situation was “unlikely to improve” in the short term as the North East Training School has 150 places available for medical students but fewer than 40 applications had been received.
Of these, experience has shown that about 50% will lead to a placement eg just 20 people training to qualify as a doctor, he said.
He added that a “number of doctors” were leaving the profession “very early” which was an issue.
This is exacerbated by the fact that many doctors are at - or approaching - retirement age and there is an ever increasing demand in cases of acute or chronic disease.
There had been an increase in the number of appointments against a reduction in the fee that GP practices receive per patient.
From 2000 to 2014 the number of appointments had almost doubled and there had been a year on year increase since 2011.
The age profile of nurse practitioners was even higher than for doctors and they had restrictions on returning to work, once they had left.
Dr Canning said that if a doctor in a hospital wanted to become a GP they had to go through whole elements of their training again. This was a disincentive to going down the GP route. Also if a doctor practised abroad for a period, they would often require retraining when they returned to the UK.
Chairman of the panel, Councillor Eddie Dryden said that the position did “not seem encouraging” but Dr Canning remained positive.
He said there had been similar shortages in the past and it tended to go in cycles.
He said the biggest concern to him was why people did not want to train to become GPs. He said it could be due to bad press that GPs had received in recent years.
Dr Canning said to encourage people to remain in general practice, doctors should be given a varied porfolio comprising, among other things, research, public health, general practice and community services; developing them after training; and time and other opportunities to use their skills.
It was agreed by the panel that NHS England and the local Clinical Commissioning Groups be asked what their plans are for addressing the shortage of doctors.
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