GPs work an average of 26 hours a week, study finds
GPs are working an average of 26 hours a week, a study showing the decline of the family doctor has revealed.
The contracted hours fulfilled by each fully qualified GP has fallen from 30 a week on average in 2016, to 26 a week in 2022, according to new analysis of NHS data.
Dr Rosa Parisi, the study’s lead author from the University of Manchester, which conducted the research, suggested that GPs may be working less because they were “likely to be unwilling or unable to face more of the intense day-to-day pressures”.
The study revealed that despite there being about 6 per cent more GPs in 2022 than there were in 2015, they were delivering 2.7 per cent fewer hours in total. This is despite an increase of almost 250 patients per GP, with each family doctor now responsible for 2,085 patients each on average.
Researchers said the decrease in total working hours was down to a combination of family doctors retiring early, poor recruitment and retention and more GPs doing fewer hours.
“The NHS in England is facing a year-on-year reduction of the total working hours by general practitioners,” Dr Parisi said.
“This decrease is down to early retirement, high levels of GP turnover and low retention, insufficient number of newly trained GPs joining the workforce, and lack of overseas recruitment. But reduction in working hours is also a major factor.”
The analysis compared the number of “full-time equivalent” GPs there were in each year with the total number of fully qualified GPs doing NHS work.
One full-time equivalent GP could be made up of multiple doctors working part-time, which is increasingly the case.
The latest NHS data show that of the 37,677 fully qualified GPs in England, they are filling 27,662 full-time equivalent roles.
The NHS standard contract puts a full-time week at 37.5 hours, although there is some debate about what full-time looks like for a GP. Other studies have shown they often work beyond their contracted hours on tasks such as admin.
The study found that in 2015, GPs were contracted to work an average of 30 hours a week on average, delivering about 80 per cent of the total hours they would if they had all worked full-time.
By 2022, this had fallen to just under 26 hours a week, with family doctors contracted to work 69 per cent of a week on average.
This reduction was largely driven by male GPs cutting their hours from 2015, when many worked more than the hours required under a full-time contract.
This fell to almost 32 hours a week on average in 2022, while female doctors remained stable at about two-thirds of a week – between 24 and 25 hours on average.
Dr Parisi said they were “not entirely sure why male GPs are reducing their hours, but policies are desperately needed to incentivise them to work longer”.
The study also found GP surgeries in the most deprived areas had 17 per cent more patients and 19 per cent more chronic conditions per full-time equivalent GP, compared with the least deprived areas.
Prof Kamila Hawthorne, the chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said that “many GPs feel as though cutting their clinical hours is the only way to avoid burnout and keep their patients safe”.
She said the number of family doctors was not keeping pace with the growing number of patients, who increasingly have multiple and complex needs.
“GPs are highly skilled at delivering this care for patients, but it is becoming more difficult to deliver in the face of intense workload and workforce pressures,” she said. “We can’t keep doing more with less.”