New evidence has emerged of the pressures on many practices following controversial reporting of an in-depth study into GP working practices.

An analysis found huge variations in the number of patients per GP – with numbers ranging from 2,821 in Hull to 1,279 in Wirral. Overall, England has on average one working GP for every 2,000 people, according to the data released by the Liberal Democrats.

Earlier The Daily Telegraph published its own interpretation of findings by the National Institute for Health Research, which found that in 2019 GPs worked on average 40 hours a week. The newspaper reports highlighted the finding that the average GP worked 6.25 sessions a week (the median number of sessions) with the mean number of sessions standing at 6.6, interpreting this as meaning that most GPs are now working three-day weeks. The research also showed salaried GPs working significantly fewer sessions than GPs who are partners – and that a GP working six sessions would work 44 hours a week. The findings indicate that the number of hours a doctor works per session has increased steadily in the last decade. They show that 3.6% of GPs have working weeks approaching 60 hours, for ten sessions a week.

Royal College of GPs chair Professor Martin Marshall said: “Working ‘part time’ in general practice often means working what would normally be considered full-time, or longer, and will likely include many hours of paperwork on top of patient appointments. When GPs are working, they want to be with patients, delivering care, not filling out forms and ticking boxes.This is why the College has long called for a system-wide programme to eradicate bureaucratic burdens and unnecessary workload, to prevent GP burnout and allow GPs more time to care for patients. GPs and our teams and our patients are on the same side – we want the same things: good, safe and appropriate access to general practice services. We need to see the Government make good on its promise of 6,000 more GPs and 26,000 more members of the practice team – as well as introducing measures to tackle ‘undoable’ workload in general practice.”

British Medical Association GP committee chair Dr Richard Vautrey said: “The very notion of a part-time GP is often anything but. The data used in this article actually shows that the average hours worked by a GP in England is around 40 hours per week – the same as most full-time jobs. To focus purely on sessions is an incredibly crude measure. Each morning or afternoon session of work for a GP is defined as four hours and ten minutes long. In reality, the sheer scale of workload means that both a morning session and an afternoon session often extend well beyond this, which means many GPs in reality work ten to 12-hour days. When even part-time GPs are working at such a pace, it’s clear to see that current levels of workload – made worse by piles of admin and bureaucracy – are not sustainable. By removing some of this unnecessary bureaucracy, GPs would be able to devote more of their working hours to seeing patients who need them.”

The Daily Telegraph today reports a further allegation that some practices are wrongly recording remote consultations as face to face. The claim is based on an admission by NHS Digital that the data supplied by practices on mode of consultation may not match its specifications – leading to some remote consultations being logged as face to face.