WORKING as a GP in Worcestershire is an awful job, one of the county’s top doctors has said.

Dr Simon Parkinson, from St Stephen's Surgery in Redditch and the secretary of the Worcestershire Local Medical Committee, said many of his colleagues were choosing either to retire early or find another career as a result of an ever-increasing workload.

His comments came after a BBC survey found 56 per cent of GPs expected to leave before they were 60.

Dr Parkinson said the average age for female GPs in the county retiring or leaving the job was between 37 and 39, and between 55 and 60 for men.

“The job’s awful and people are voting with their feet,” he said.

“If you look at the average age of GPs in Worcestershire over the past couple of years all the guys in their 50s and 60s are gone and we can’t recruit more.”

He said the problem was compounded by a serious shortage in young people training to be GPs or other health workers.

“People just don’t want to do it,” he said.

“Worcestershire is an attractive place to live and work so if we can’t recruit here God knows what it’s like elsewhere.

“There are lots of reasons for it, but the bottom line is the work load is horrendous and no one sees it getting any better.

“People are looking at their income and their lifestyles and saying we want to do something else.”

Dr Parkinson, who is 55, said he was seriously considering retiring or cutting down his hours within the next year or so, and called on the government to do more to help doctors.

“I’ve never known it as bad as this in 28 years of being a GP,” he said.

“The demand for same-day appointments is growing and growing and there’s just no additional resources.

“And none of the political parties have a plan to make it better.”

Figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre show there were 297,922 patients registered with a GP in south Worcestershire in January –up from 3,290 since April 2013.

Dr Parkinson said the problem was caused by a combination of issues, including people living longer and a greater tendency among young people to seek medical health with more minor issues such as coughs and colds.

“The system just isn’t keeping up with demand, he said.

“The traditional model of general practice is not sustainable but no one’s come up with a coherent plan.

“What I am seeing is an increasing amount of GPs with burnout. And it’s not just us – its across the health sector.”

“A lot of doctors are talking about charging – 20 years ago that was heresy but now people are saying that might be the answer. I think that says a lot.”

The BBC’s survey showed 25 per cent said they would definitely leave before 60, with workload, working hours and pay among the most common reasons for wanting to leave.

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt described the figures as "worrying".

But Dr Krishna Kasaraneni of the British Medical Association said he was “not surprised”, saying: “politicians across the board need to acknowledge that general practice is not resourced correctly.”