Why GP wellbeing matters

Eve Barnes discusses the increase in burnout across the healthcare sector and what can be done to encourage important conversations on wellbeing

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on RCGP

The Commonwealth Fund recently surveyed doctors and found that, since the pandemic, burnout and workload has increased and doctors are considering leaving or not seeing patients.

The survey found a correlation between doctors who felt that the quality of care had reduced since COVID and those who reported burnout, stress and emotional distress. Looking at data in the 2022 National Training Survey, trainees associated to the RCGP had the third highest percentage of people reporting high levels of burnout compared to the other colleges.

Outcomes of the report

For Eve, one of the outcomes of the Commonwealth Fund report was that most physicians do not seek help – meaning that this is not just a problem in general practice. A 2019 GMC survey found that one third of doctors in training did not know where to seek wellbeing support.

The RCGP website  has helpful links and their five ways to improve GP wellbeing include practices can link with a local park run –  this is an initiative that can benefit everyone in the practice as it can help to connect with the local community and become more active. You can sign up on the RCGP website to become a Parkrun Practice.

Challenges and burnout

A British Journal of General Practice article on achieving high performance in primary care acknowledges the challenges of burnout and suggests using a framework that aims to facilitate effective teams working within operational models so that burnout can be avoided. The paper references the following core components:

• Science and informatics to measure real-time access to knowledge and digital capture of the care experience.
• Patient–clinician partnerships that engage and empower patients.
• Incentives that reward high- value care and emphasise transparency.
• A continuous learning ethos that focuses on a leadership- instilled culture of learning, and provides supportive system competencies.
• Developing organisational structures, and governance mechanisms, that consider relevant policies and regulations and facilitate collaboration, learning, and research.

Staff wellbeing and support needs to be an explicit part of any framework that aims to address performance.

Ideas and resources

Eve has compiled a few ideas and resources that feed into both a culture of learning and the development of organisational structures that are curious about what wellbeing means to you and your colleagues at a practice level – for example:

• the ‘time to talk’ page has helpful ideas and resources, and a page specifically for work places and ways to get people talking;
• a ‘lunch and learn’ might be a good way to start a conversation; have a look at What matters most conversations?

These compassionate conversations are taking place throughout primary care, but Eve believes GPs aren’t having enough of them amongst themselves. There are likely to be similar fears to those in advanced care planning conversations, such as, ‘What if we say something that can’t be delivered?’ or ‘Do we really have time for this?’

Just being in an environment where it is possible to start a conversation about what is important seems to be a great place to start thinking about burnout and wellbeing.