Tenth National GP Worklife Survey
Overview
Overview
The aim of this project is to undertake a tenth round of the GP Worklife survey. The National GP Worklife Survey is a national survey of GPs in England, which has been undertaken nine times since 1999. The survey focuses upon GPs’ experiences of their working lives, asking questions about: satisfaction with various aspects of their work (including physical working condition, remuneration, variety, and ability to use their skills); sources of pressure at work (including resource pressures, demands from a variety of sources, and workload); overall experience of their work (including complexity and need to work quickly); and future working intentions (including to increase or decrease working hours and to quit practice).
Outcomes
Outcomes
We found that the mean level of overall satisfaction, measured between 1 (extremely dissatisfied) and 7 (extremely satisfied), increased by 0.24 (95% CI: 0.08, 0.40) points from 4.25 in 2017 to 4.49 in 2019. Mean levels of satisfaction increased between 2017 and 2019 to varying degrees in all nine domains of job satisfaction, although this remains lower than the peak of satisfaction found in 2005. Overall hours of work showed a slight decline, but responses to questions about stressful aspects of the job suggest that GPs feel they need to work increasingly intensively. Intentions to quit practice remain high, with 63% of respondents over the age of 50 reporting a considerable or high likelihood that they will leave patient care roles in the next five years. More worryingly, perhaps, 11% of GPs under 50 suggested they might also leave, although this is a slight decline since 2017. The final report was published in June 2020.
Read the final report