Dr Toyosi Adeniji, a GP partner in Northampton and RCGP spokesperson, tells the Mirror about a typical day...

Getting into practice for 8.30am, I try to squeeze in admin, like reviewing blood test results, but it’s never quite enough time and I need to get my first patient in.

Consultations are 10-15 minutes long. In that time, we need to review their medical notes, talk through their history and symptoms and start to think about next steps of clinical management.

The patients we see have increasingly complex health needs. It’s certainly not just coughs and colds. Our patient population includes people with multiple, often chronic, conditions. With complex patients, we need time. Often 10 to 15 minutes just isn’t long enough. I want to be able to talk through all their symptoms and find out about their life – trying to find clues about what might be going on. I don’t want to just hand them a prescription and send them out the door.

Around midday we usually allocate time for home visits, where myself or other members of the practice team see a range of patients and this could also include providing end-of-life care. I’m back in the practice seeing patients by 2pm. This is interspersed with questions or requests for advice from team members I supervise. There will also be emergencies I need to help sort out.

I finish up with patients around 6pm and then the mountains of bureaucracy begin – often in my own time. Some GPs end up regularly working 12-hour days.

Although what I have described is just a day, where clinicians are having to see and deal with 40-60 patients in some cases, the full week varies.

I am a portfolio GP whereby I am also involved in medical education, as well as medical leadership and management at various levels, which also requires time out for meetings. This is in combination with looking after my family as well.

I love being a GP, but I worry about the future of general practice. We’re being stretched so thin and doctors are leaving. We need proper funding to maintain our workforce. I worry about patient safety when we’re under such pressure.