Intended for healthcare professionals

Careers

NHS unveils service to help GPs with burnout

BMJ 2016; 355 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i5468 (Published 07 October 2016) Cite this as: BMJ 2016;355:i5468
  1. Gareth Iacobucci
  1. The BMJ

GPs in England who experience stress and burnout will be able to access a new, free confidential support service from January 2017.

The NHS GP Health Service, funded by NHS England at a cost of £19.5m over the next five years, will offer services such as general psychiatric assessment and treatment, support for addiction related health problems, and one to one and group psychotherapy sessions.

The service will be available across England and will be provided by the Hurley Clinic Partnership, run by the former chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Clare Gerada, which currently provides the NHS Practitioner Health Programme for London based doctors.

GPs who use the new service will be able to get support through a confidential national self referral phone line, a website, or an app.

The announcement, which follows a commitment in NHS England’s General Practice Forward View to tackle burnout among doctors,12 came as NHS England also announced plans to revamp its induction and refresher scheme to make it easier for GPs who have taken a career break to return to work.

GPs in the scheme will see their monthly bursary increase from £2300 to £3500 and will also be offered time limited financial top ups towards their indemnity costs and professional registration costs until 31 October 2018.

NHS England will also set up a dedicated national support team to help returning GPs with paperwork, occupational health assessments, indemnity, and coordination of assessments and placements. It also pledged to make the induction and refresher scheme “more flexible” and to ensure that “suitably qualified and experienced” doctors did not have to complete the process in the future.

The changes were announced after consultation with Health Education England, the BMA, and the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Maureen Baker, chair of the GPs’ college, said, “It is vital that GPs who want to return to practice aren’t put off simply because the process is too bureaucratic, and we’re optimistic that the improvements announced today will make the process even easier and help us build our GP workforce, ultimately in the best interests of patient care.”

Krishna Kasaraneni, the BMA’s lead on education, training, and workforce, said, “One of the key factors undermining general practice in the past few years has been the mounting workforce crisis that has left many practices without enough GPs to deliver an effective service to patients. An important issue has been the ongoing and completely unavoidable barriers that are put in place when GPs return to work after taking a career break or leaving the NHS for short periods. We cannot afford to have highly skilled professionals sitting on the sidelines at a time when patient demand is rocketing.”

Rosamond Roughton, NHS England’s director of Commissioning, said, “Today we are announcing a major step forward in the support we are offering GPs, as part of the commitments and investment we set out in the General Practice Forward View. We are responding directly to the concerns of the profession and implementing immediate, practical ways of helping GPs and those returning to a profession that remains one of the most rewarding careers in medicine.”

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