GPs to vote to reduce their working day by two and a half hours

Doctors will vote to reduce their working hours.

It is currently assumed that the offices of general practitioners are open from 8 am to 6.30 pm every day.

But doctors attending a conference of local committees of the British Medical Association next month must vote to cut standard hours by two and a half hours.

The changes will mean routine hours from 9 am to 5 pm, with GPs paying extra for work outside these hours.

The local medical commission of Avon will propose the proposal, saying that “urgent action” should be taken to manage the imbalance between workload and workforce within the general practice.

The GPs said the public had emerged from the pandemic with “additional and unrealistic expectations of common practice”.

Another proposal calls for “safe workload limits” to reduce the burden on GPs.

“Significant” decline in hours worked after the pandemic

This comes after a government study found that most GPs now work three days or less a week.

The study, commissioned by the Ministry of Health earlier this month, showed a “significant” drop in hours after the pandemic, with only half of family doctors working until Friday afternoon.

It was found that a total of 58.4% of family doctors work six half-day sessions or less – the equivalent of three days. This compares to 50.1% in the last study in 2019, before the pandemic.

The study found that GPs with an average profit of just over £ 100,000 were more likely to work all day at the beginning of the week.

Despite repeated promises by the government to expand the working hours of surgery, the number of GPs working in the evenings and on weekends has fallen sharply, the study found.

Only 27% of surveyed general practitioners said that their practice offers extended hours in the evenings and on weekends – a decrease of 33% in 2019. During the same period, the number of surveyed GPs, who usually work in shifts on Saturday mornings, decreased from 8 , 3 per penny to 5.1 per cent.

Last month, NHS officials promised to step up the provision of Saturday meetings, promising that each area should have surgery open all day until October.