Stressed GPs are ‘crying out for help’
DESPERATE doctors are at breaking point as they battle impossible workloads, campaigners warned yesterday.
Rebuild General Practice, which represents GPs in England, Scotland, and Wales, called the crisis a “workforce emergency” and urged ministers to do more to recruit and retrain staff.
The “cry for help” comes after a survey of 1,600 British GPs found four out of five were stressed, anxious or depressed in the past year. Half said surgery staff had quit over the last five years because of unmanageable task lists.
Dr Rachel Ward, from Rebuild General Practice, said: “This is a crisis for GPs and an emergency for patients.
“Years of underfunding and neglect has severely damaged general practice, leaving us with a skeleton staff and no plan for filling the gaps. Meanwhile, patient appointments are at an all-time high.
“We are crying out for help – for our patients, but also as human beings who are simply trying to offer excellent care and look after our communities.”
NHS data out yesterday showed more than 27 million patients were seen by GP surgeries in March, up from 23 million in February. Sixty-two per cent were seen face-to-face, 34 per cent by phone and small numbers through home visits or video calls.
The British Medical Association (BMA) union has warned failure to address the unsustainable pressure could trigger an “exodus” of GPs and endanger patient care. Dr Kieran Sharrock, of the BMA, said of the latest figures: “Last month, appointments in England were up by four million while GP numbers continued to spiral downwards.
“This is completely untenable for practices, for GPs and for patients. “Compared with this time a year ago, England has the equivalent of 369 fewer full-time, fully qualified GPs – having lost 30 in the most recent month.
“This means each day there is one less doctor for patients to see.”
Dr Sharrock said some 1,565 fully-qualified, full-time equivalent GPs had been lost since 2015.
He added: “This trend, of demand rocketing while we haemorrhage doctors, is pushing the remaining staff to breaking point as they take on more and more each day, to a point which is not safe for them and certainly not safe for patients.”
Meanwhile, NHS data revealed for the first time how long patients are spending at their GP surgeries.
Some 10 million appointments attended in England last month were conducted in 10 minutes or less, including 4.6 million logged as taking between one and five minutes.
But doubts over how quickly appointments were “checked out” on surgery computers mean the actual time spent with
patients may be even less. In 2019, the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) warned 10-minute appointments were “not fit for purpose” and called for the standard duration to be extended to 15 minutes.
It defended doctors yesterday, saying the
figures covered all GP practice appointments, including visits such as blood tests carried out by nurses.
RCGP chairman, Professor Martin Marshall, said: “The data shows that GP teams are trying their best in the face of
intense workload and workforce pressures to ensure their patients receive timely and appropriate care.
“Patients with complex health problems need to have more time with their doctor so we can ensure they are receiving the care they need.
Ruth Rankine, of the NHS Confederation healthcare body, said: “Primary care teams continue to work flat out to address increasing and more complex demand, seeing 17 per cent more patients in March than the previous month and back to pre-pandemic levels of activity.
“Of those, a clear majority of patients, 63 per cent, were seen face-to-face or at home – another monthly increase – and 44 per cent of appointments took place on the day they were booked.
“It is testament to the perpetual hard work of all those working in primary care that more people’s needs are being met.”
The Department of Health and Social Care said: “We know that general practices are under huge pressure and we are grateful for the contribution of GPs and their teams, who stepped up to deliver our worldleading vaccination programme while still providing exemplary care for their patients during the pandemic.
“We are working with the NHS to improve access to GPs, tackle the Covid backlog, and grow the general practice workforce to ensure everyone receives the care they need.”