GP surgeries in Cornwall are so short staffed they are offering shifts to any doctors on HOLIDAY in the area.

The Roseland Surgeries has taken to social media to ask visiting doctors to take up the offer and "help pay for the extortionate cost of the hols".

Practice manager Nicola Davies said she had tried to fill the shifts without any luck before posting a message on Twitter.

She tweeted a stunning picture of the area, and said: ''If you're a GP coming down to Cornwall on holiday, and you fancy a locum session or two (to help pay for the extortionate costs of the hols) please give me a shout....you might like what you see!''

The team, which usually has four doctors based at surgeries in Tregony, Portscatho and St Mawes, has been affected by a GP relocating.

Nicola told the BBC "The scenery is beautiful, so hopefully I can attract someone.''

With the remaining doctors also wanting their own holidays in August, "we were struggling to fill the sessions left", Ms Davies said.

The problem was made worse by a "shortage of locums in Cornwall generally" and the "geography of where we are", she added.

"There's a real drive if you want to come down to the peninsula, so getting somebody over here can be a little bit of a challenge," she said.

Having tried more conventional methods of recruitment, she said "there are just not the doctors available, so I had to think outside the box".

Nationally, there were 2000 fewer full-time doctors in March 2021, compared to March 2017.

Ms Davies told the BBC: "I thought, maybe there's somebody who, if they're here, might want to earn a bit for their Airbnb, their bed and breakfast or their holiday cottage.

"So I got the best photo that I've got of the village and posted it."

Her tweet has sparked interest from medics around the country.

Paul Cook, GP and NHS Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group chairman, said surgeries in Cornwall had a number of GP vacancies - similar to general practices "up and down the country."

He told the BBC: "We would love to encourage people to relocate and work in our wonderful county - who wouldn't want to be in such a stunning and friendly place."

Mr Cook said Cornwall was a "great place to work with a lot of career development opportunities."

ENDS