Undergraduate teaching in UK general practice: a geographical snapshot.

BACKGROUND: Learning in general practice is an essential component of undergraduate medical education; currently, on average, 13% of clinical placements in the UK are in general practice. However, whether general practice can sustainably deliver more undergraduate placements is uncertain.

AIM: To identify the geographical distribution of undergraduate teaching practices and their distance from the host medical school.

DESIGN AND SETTING: National survey of all medical schools in the UK.

METHOD: All 33 UK medical schools were invited to provide the postcodes of their undergraduate teaching practices. These were collated, de-duplicated, and mapped. The distance in kilometres and journey times by car and public transport between each medical school and its teaching practices was estimated using Transport Direct (www.transportdirect.info). The postcodes of every practice in the UK were obtained from the UK's health departments.

RESULTS: All 33 UK medical schools responded; 4392 practices contributed to teaching, with a median (minimum-maximum) of 142 (17-385) practices per school. The median (minimum-maximum) distance between a school and a teaching practice was 28 km (0-1421 km), 41 (0:00-23:26) minutes' travel by car and 1 hour 12 (0:00-17:29) minutes' travel by public transport. All teaching practices were accessible by public transport in one school and 90-99% were in a further four schools; 24 schools had >20% of practices that were inaccessible by public transport.

CONCLUSION: The 4392 undergraduate teaching general practices are widely distributed and potentially any practice, no matter how isolated, could contribute to undergraduate education. However, this is, at the price of a considerable travel burden.