What type of work can you get as a locum GP? More than you'd think

“Locum GP” conjures one image — sitting in someone else’s consulting room for a day. That’s a big part of it, but far from the whole picture. Worth knowing the range, even if you only ever do the standard version.

The standard: in-hours practice sessions

Booked sessions covering a practice’s own GPs — annual leave, sickness, gaps in their rota. This is the bulk of most locums’ work and the easiest to find through the usual platforms.

Out-of-hours (OOH)

Evening, overnight, and weekend cover, usually through a dedicated OOH provider rather than an individual practice. Different pace and case mix to in-hours work — some locums love the variety, others find it’s not for them. Worth trying before committing a big chunk of your diary to it.

Extended access and urgent care hubs

Many areas run extended-hours hubs — evenings and weekends, often across several practices pooling capacity. Booking routes are sometimes separate from standard in-hours platforms, so worth asking your local hub directly if you’re interested.

Remote and telephone/video triage

An increasing amount of work doesn’t require being physically on-site at all — telephone triage, video consultations, remote prescribing reviews. Useful if you want to build in some lower-logistics sessions around travel-heavy weeks, or if driving between sites isn’t appealing for a stretch of your career.

Care homes and community work

Some areas have dedicated locum sessions covering care home rounds or community clinics, distinct from standard practice-based work. Often booked through the same platforms but worth specifically filtering for if it interests you.

Less obvious routes

A few areas locums sometimes overlook entirely:

• Insurance medicals — assessments for insurance companies, generally booked separately from clinical locum platforms
• Occupational health — assessing fitness for work, often for larger employers
• Medico-legal and expert witness work — report writing and opinions for legal cases, usually requires building experience and often additional training first
• Teaching and training — supervising trainees or medical students, if your practice or deanery has capacity
• Prison healthcare — a genuinely different environment, run through specific providers rather than mainstream locum platforms

None of these are things to jump into cold — most have their own accreditation, additional indemnity considerations, or experience expectations. But if you’re finding standard in-hours work repetitive, or want to diversify your income sources, it’s worth knowing the fuller landscape exists rather than assuming the platforms you already use show you everything available.

Whatever mix you land on

Different work types often come with different rates, different invoicing routes, and sometimes different pension treatment. Whatever combination you end up doing, the same basic habit applies: log it consistently, regardless of which category it falls into, so your records don’t fragment across five different mental buckets.