The real work of general practice: understanding our hidden workload
Stephen J Woolford, Jessica Watson, Joanne Reeve, Tess Harris
Abstract
Opening paragraph:GPs are consistently being asked to work even harder than we already are. We see endless news stories about falling GP appointment numbers and suboptimal patient care due to lack of GP availability. We hear it from our patients, sometimes in gentle coded language (‘I know you are busy, but surely you can squeeze me in tomorrow?’) and sometimes in more explicit terms (‘I never used to wait so long for an appointment, things have really changed … ’). And as a profession we all too often tell each other we need to work harder, with GP partners and practice managers, understandably, trying to maximise the number of appointments offered to satisfy a seemingly infinite clinical demand.