You may feel under the weather when you visit your family doctor – but spare a thought for their wellness. According to a new survey of doctors, GPs are facing an ‘unsustainable’ workload which is putting your wellbeing at risk. Almost half of family doctors’ emotional health is on the brink of ‘burnout’, the survey found.
Based on the responses of 1,800 GPs, the survey found that 43% were classified as ‘high risk’ of burning out, be it because of their self-rated levels of emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment or ‘depersonalisation’. According to Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association’s GP committee, these findings should set off ‘alarm bells’ in the Department of Health and the NHS.
The survey, published in Pulse magazine, found that – of the 1,784 GPs – 97% felt low levels of accomplishment, 72% registered high amounts of emotional exhaustion and 41% felt a great deal of “depersonalisation”. These results come as Dr Clare Gerada, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners council, warns MPs that the workload for family doctors had doubled over the past decade. According to Gerada, GPs are the ‘floodgates’ preventing the NHS from falling apart.
Dr Vautrey commented, “It’s alarming that so many GPs are burnt out. The current level of work is unsustainable. I hope enough alarm bells are ringing in the Department of Health, in NHS England, Health Education England and all the devolved nations for them to say ‘we need to tackle this’.” Dr Gerada added, “I am getting emails from colleagues across the country to say their surgeries are now fully booked by 8.30 in the morning which is disgraceful. How can we run an NHS where you cannot get – unless it is an emergency and by that I mean a dire emergency – an appointment with your GP on the day?”
This was Gerada’s recent warning to the Commons Health Select Committee, noting that GPs’ workloads are higher than ever and many surgeries become fully booked for same-day appointments as soon as they open in the morning. She also said that blaming the increasing burden on hospital A&E departments on the 2004 GP contract is ‘lazy’, as this absolved family doctors of responsibility for providing out-of-hours care.
Comments are closed.