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GPs should take time off to rest if they can, says NHSE

GPs should take time off to rest if they can, says NHSE

NHS England has encouraged GPs to ‘take some time off’ to rest and recuperate if possible.

It comes as an independent study has been commissioned to assess the wellbeing of the primary care workforce, it added.

Earlier this month, MPs warned that the NHS burnout ‘emergency’ requires a workforce planning overhaul to tackle the huge GP shortfall.

In an email bulletin sent to practices today, NHS Englands said that GPs and practice staff should ‘recharge [their] batteries’ after a challenging period.

It said: ‘The past 18 months have been incredibly demanding on all of you and we want to take this opportunity to remind you to please take some time off if you can to spend with friends and family. 

‘It is important that we all take time for ourselves away from work to recharge our batteries and look after our mental health and wellbeing.’

It added that the independent Institute for Employment Studies (IES) has been commissioned to conduct a study of the current ‘wellbeing of the primary care workforce’.

The survey will ask GPs and their staff to ‘reflect’ on their personal wellbeing as well as ‘functioning’ of their team and their ‘experiences of working remotely’, it said.

Responses, which must be submitted by Monday 12 July, will be used to ‘continually improve the coaching support’ offered by NHS England, it added.

The latest GP appointment figures released last week showed the ‘immense pressures’ that GPs and are under with the ever-increasing workload generated by the pandemic and patient backlog.

And a BMA report revealed last week that GPs are facing ‘moral distress’ as a result of not being able to deliver the care they feel they should 


          

READERS' COMMENTS [15]

Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles

Michael Mullineux 22 June, 2021 4:48 pm

I for one would be far happier if NHSE rested and took a break. 6 months minimum would be ideal – go home, put your collective feet up and just stop. Stop blue sky thinking, SOP’s, new poorly considered initiatives, speaking to the press etc. And possibly reflect on your collective performance throughout the last 18 months …. really not very good, was it?Wouldn’t mind betting that this would result in instant reinvigoration of General Practice. Now breathe…

gregory rose 22 June, 2021 5:02 pm

This ^^^^^

John Graham Munro 22 June, 2021 5:47 pm

Time off from what I’d like to know?——-They don’t have to work extra hours to bale out the Government!

David Turner 22 June, 2021 6:01 pm

I will gladly excuse myself from wasting any more time spent reading the drivel that emerges from the mouse clickers in NHSE

Scottish GP 22 June, 2021 6:03 pm

They supplying locums?
Thought not.
Empty words.

Scottish GP 22 June, 2021 6:06 pm

And they can stick their ‘coaching support’ where the sun don’t shine.
Contemptible claptrap.

Chris GP 22 June, 2021 6:08 pm

A genuine laugh out loud moment when I read this headline. Not a clue they have…really not a clue.

Patrufini Duffy 22 June, 2021 6:34 pm

This bulletin dropped Copperfield’s thank you. Ed and Niki. Like Richard and Judy. Piers and Suzanne, Madan and Parsa, Hancock and Topwood Ltd. To those that have a BMI of less than 27.5 – best wishes. No wellbeing initiative for you – beyond more staring at screens looking at people telling you to look after yourself, for the sake of the patient. The only thing going on is dishonesty in leadership and science. You’re lucky the public know very little about the GP extraction due. And the impact of the pandemic on General Practitioners. The podium awaits – BBC One 7pm is free. Stokes-Lampard maybe free too for company. You know that is the right thing – but the right thing is irrelevant these days. Bercow and Cummings have broken rank. And you’re running excess of 360 million consultations a year (seemingly by professionals who play golf) and have multiple streams/providers/procurements and “joint up-not so joint up care” riling GPs up, with a population who is hungry for diagnostics and complaints for free, which only you have fueled and put in their anxious heads. This “business” and profiteering from medicine/data/tech and “innovation” is clearly not working. The gatekeeper will open the gate full. That is a tragedy that even they have lost a sense of will. There’s a podcast I listened to “You’re not a Frog”. Try it – before the job promotion to the USA corporate and health consultancy firm. Yes, do take some rest, before the NHS punches you in the face again pre-winter.

Patrufini Duffy 22 June, 2021 8:10 pm

Er…
GUARDIAN: shareholders in Babylon Healthcare made donations to Conservatives and Hancock’s 2019 leadership CAMPAIGN.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/22/shareholders-of-firm-backed-by-matt-hancock-have-donated-to-the-tories

This is more messed up by the minute. Take a holiday, while we siphon what we can. Time is limited ofcourse.

Richard Bensa 23 June, 2021 4:58 am

Emigrated 3 yrs ago to Queensland to escape this awful NHS. 4 more UK GPs coming to my practice in next 6/12. The NHS/GP is finished. Enjoying John Graham Munro comments from 12000 miles though

Dr N 23 June, 2021 8:56 am

Yep, will be taking time to rest soon, early retirement from all this BS

John Graham Munro 23 June, 2021 9:25 am

Ah! locums—-remember them?—–that now refreshed workforce. abandoned by those ?stressed G.Ps——they’ve had an unpaid enforced break —–unlike our ?overworked G.Ps who are busy having paid nervous breakdowns—- no free holidays see—-and locums charge the earth to temporarily sort out their messy disorganised practices

Richard Mitchell 23 June, 2021 9:33 am

Dr N-agreed, gone early, delighted

John Glasspool 23 June, 2021 4:31 pm

I’ve been taking a break for,,,,,,well,,,,,about seven years now. Wonderful!

Simon Ruffle 23 June, 2021 4:44 pm

The headline here is what NHSE can do if a GP somewhere cannot take a proper break.