UK GPs are more stressed than international peers, analysis shows

General practitioners in the UK are experiencing the highest stress and lowest job satisfaction when compared with colleagues in nine other high income countries, an analysis has found.

The report by the Health Foundation analysed data from the Commonwealth Fund’s survey of 9526 GPs in 10 high income countries, including 1010 in the UK.1 In all countries most GPs reported dealing with higher workloads than before the covid-19 pandemic, and many said that they had experienced greater stress and signs of emotional distress.

But UK GPs reported higher levels of emotional distress and bigger rises in workload than GPs in nearly all other countries. Some 71% of UK GPs said that they found their job “extremely” or “very stressful,” the highest of the 10 countries surveyed and similar to Germany (68%). Stress among UK GPs was up 11 percentage points since 2019.

Hugh Alderwick, director of policy at the Health Foundation and coauthor …