Hunt to tackle GP burnout by reviewing 10-minute appointments
The health secretary has promised he is ‘absolutely committed to reducing GP burnout’ and indicated he would do this by reviewing the model of 10-minute appointment slots.
Speaking in the House of Commons this morning, Mr Hunt said GP workforce concerns were a ‘very, very important issue’ that needed to be solved in order to tackle existing burnout within the profession.
Later, at the Best Practice conference in Birmingham, the health secretary said that he believed that the model of 10-minute appointments was responsible for the ‘hamster wheel’ feeling for overworked GPs.
In Parliament, he was responding to urgent MP questions about NHS England’s new five-year plan when he acknowledged problems of an impending swathe of GP retirements and a lack of investment in general practice.
He said: ‘We do have the demographic issue [of impending GP retirements] and that is why we are looking at how we can make it easier for GPs who have perhaps stopped practising, perhaps to go and have a family, to come back into the profession, how we can make it easier for GPs to do part-time work.
‘We are looking at all those issues because we are absolutely committed to reducing the burnout that a lot of GPs feel that they have at the moment by increasing the number of GPs that are actively practising.’
Related stories
NHS England to spend a ‘much higher proportion’ of budget on general practice over next five years
Read all about Pulse’s Battling Burnout campaign
Professor Malcolm Grant: ‘I am deeply conscious of the seriousness of GP burnout’
He told conference delegates: ‘One of the big changes that I want to see over the next five years are measures that have a dramatic impact on GP burnout. Because I think we have too many GPs who are retiring because of that sort of hamster wheel feeling, just working harder and harder with more and more people trying to see them and then not having the capacity to meet that demand.
‘And in particular I think there’s a pressure on trying to see someone with complex, long-term conditions in just a 10-minute slot. It’s very, very difficult to do that. So we recognise the long-term capacity issue, we have to be imaginative in the short term as well.’
Mr Hunt said he had been to the US with RCGP chair Dr Maureen Baker and they had seen the ‘holistic’ model of care offered.
He said: ‘We visited some really interesting not-for-profit, GP organisations in the United States. Where they have looked at models of holistic care, where they have different kind of structures to the kind of structures we have here: with a 10-minute appointment for one specific problem… the thing that stood out most in those new models, was the reduction in GP burnout.’
The news comes after NHS England bowed to demands from GPs expressed via Pulse’s ‘Battling Burnout’ campaign earlier this year by promising that all GPs will be provided with ‘high-quality’ occupational health if they need it.
Last month, NHS England debated funding for occupational health services in board meetings as GP leaders stressed the importance of keeping the issue on NHS England’s agenda.
Earlier, Mr Hunt told Parliament he welcomed NHS England’s five-year plan and promised that the Government was ‘calling time’ on the trend for NHS funding to be ‘sucked into the hospital sector’.
The proposals, which called for stabilising of GP core funding for two years and increased investment in primary care in the next five years, also stressed the importance of workplace wellbeing within the NHS and committed to reviewing ‘the strengthening of occupational health services’ working together with the Royal College of Occupational Health.
Readers' comments (49)
Vinci Ho | GP Partner23 Oct 2014 3:46pm
It is either all these moaning we made somehow worked( in which case , we should carry on moaning!) OR Agent Hunt has become a very nice guys( I told you my wife said he was good looking, didn't I?).
But wait a minute , it is only 8 months away from general election , isn't it?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | GP Partner23 Oct 2014 3:59pm
Hunt, if you agree that we need more funding why have you been "terrorising" us via The Daily Mail rather than engaging with us??
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | GP Partner23 Oct 2014 4:01pm
It is almost impossible to actually say anything vaguely negative about Hunt or The Daily Mail on this site witohut being censored ! What does that tell us about PULSE magazine??
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | GP Partner23 Oct 2014 4:03pm
if this excessive censorship continues then I will be calling for a boycott of Pulse magazine and a switch over to GP online as these subjects are too important to fear any offence from Politicians or the media.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | GP Partner23 Oct 2014 4:06pm
why was my comment "deleted" for saying Hunt is "two-faced"????
This is how 99% of GPs feel and there is evidence to support this statement. Get a backbone PULSE.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Editor's comments
We only moderate comments if they contravene our rules for users. You can read a copy of them here: http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/about-pulse/rules-for-commenting-on-online-stories/20001491.article#.VEktDvnF_-o
Anonymous | Salaried GP23 Oct 2014 4:13pm
I think there is a typo ? It should read -
The Government is ‘absolutely committed to reducing GPs ’ !
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | Salaried GP23 Oct 2014 4:16pm
they are obviously getting scared that they won't have a workforce for their private chums to use.
when GPs are gone from the NHS the public won't be able to blame us and they will look to politicians who caused this mess.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | GP Partner23 Oct 2014 4:28pm
We are treated like dirt and now we are not even allowed to rightly complain about Hunt on this website for fear of "deletion". Well, let's all get "deleted" and then the NHS can sort its own problems out and PULSE will become the mouthpiece of some big private provider-GOOD LUCK.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Niall Bacon | GP Partner23 Oct 2014 5:25pm
Having hammered our pay, raised our pension contributions, and pregressively eroded the tax relief on pension contributions, is it any wonder so many of us are retiring early?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Took Early Retirement | Other GP23 Oct 2014 5:27pm
How can you tell when a politician is lying?
Easy- their lips move.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment