Practices should not be put under pressure to resume non-essential services following the pandemic, GPs will say today.

The annual conference of local medical committees is set to hear about the pressures faced by practices during the pandemic – and will call for improved mental wellbeing services for the practice workforce. It will also call on the British Medical Association to support individual practices in setting the “pace of return to business as usual.” One proposal, from Leeds, would see staff with long COVID entitled to full sick pay.

Speaking to the conference, Dr Richard Vautrey, chair of the BMA GP committee, will say: “It has been a hard and difficult time that has left many physically exhausted and mentally drained. But it has shown the profession at its best. We have responded to this unprecedented situation and we have risen to and met the challenge. We don’t just need short term fixes, but a long-term commitment to investment and development of general practice, to properly redress the years that have left us as we are. We cannot allow another crisis to hit us without being better prepared.”

Dr Vautrey will highlight the increased pressure of work from e-consult patient appointment systems together with the “huge number” of phone calls. He will tell the conference that GP appointment data – showing numbers returning to levels from early last year with about 40% being on the phone – understate the complexity of work.

He will say: “It fails to show the additional activity, the growing number of prescriptions reviewed and signed, the large amount of investigations processed. It fails to recognise the intensity and pressure on our reception staff dealing with huge numbers of telephone calls and the rapidly growing number of e-consult requests. It fails to recognise the shifted work and the need to manage far more patients waiting for procedures or appointments as general practice is impacted by the serious backlog in work in secondary care and elsewhere in the system. And it fails to show the bureaucracy that we and our practice managers still have to contend with but which somehow alongside everything else we manage.”