GPs leaving profession at 'incredibly worrying' rates

New government-funded research has shown that two out of every five GPs intend to quit within the next five years as a result of extended pressures on the sector.

A survey of 2,195 GPs, carried out by the University of Manchester, found that 39 per cent were likely to leave ‘direct patient care’ by 2022, compared to 19.4 per cent who planned to quit in 2005 and 35.3 per cent in 2015.

In total, 27.7 per cent of respondents admitted that there was a high likelihood of them stopping seeing patients, and another 11.4 per cent said the likelihood was ‘considerable’. The authors of the study have called the findings ‘particularly worrying’ given the ‘possible implications it might have on recruitment, retention and patient care’.

The five most dominant sources of stress in GPs’ working lives were increasing workloads (92.3 per cent), having too little time to do justice to the job (85.3 per cent), paperwork (82.6 per cent), changes to meet requirements from external bodies (81.1 per cent) and increased demand from patients (85.8 per cent).

Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: "It's incredibly worrying to hear that so many GPs are thinking about leaving the profession within the next five years, but it certainly isn't surprising, given the intense pressures family doctors are facing. As this study shows, 20 per cent of GPs are now working intensively for more than 60 hours a week. We're trying to do more and more on less and less, and there is a limit beyond which we can no longer guarantee that we are practising safely.

"While recruiting more doctors is an obvious solution – and we've certainly seen a welcome increase in the number of trainees entering general practice – more work is needed to retain existing GPs, who are as valuable to trainees as they are to their patients, in the profession and the key to this is to tackle workload in general practice. Being a GP can be the best job in the world, but only when it's properly resourced.”