Exclusive: total number of doctors now about 1,500 less than in the year Jeremy Hunt promised a rise of 5,000 by 2020
The number of GPs in England has fallen every year since the government first pledged to increase the family doctor workforce by 5,000, a minister has admitted.
There were 29,364 full-time-equivalent GPs in post in September 2015, when the then health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, first promised to increase the total by 5,000 by 2020.
