The government is working with the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) to introduce mandatory mental health minimum standard training for all new GPs.
The news, revealed in the second annual report on the coalition government’s suicide prevention programme, comes one year after the RCGP said additional mental health training should form part of plans to extend GP training to four, rather than three years.
In the report,the government said it has set up a taskforce to identify and recommend updates to the GP training programme amid research showing that primary care patients who committed suicide were often frequent attenders.
The government’s report said: “Suicide among primary care patients is linked to frequent GP attendance, increasing attendance, and also non-attendance, the latter being associated with young and middle-aged men.”
It added: “NHS England has established a task and finish group with the Royal College of GPs mental health strategy group, whose goal is to identify and recommend mandatory mental health minimum standard training for all of primary care.”
