GPs more than twice as likely to work full-time hours as official data suggests

GPs are more than twice as likely to work full-time hours as official data suggests, according to research. The report calls for an end to the system of how family doctors’ work commitment is measured. More than half of GPs (55 per cent) in England work “at least the NHS Digital standard full-time definition of 37.

5 hours per week”, according to the University of Manchester study. This is well over double the proportion of GPs recorded as working full time in the latest data published by NHS Digital – which suggests that just 21 per cent work 37.5 hours or more.

GPs work in “sessions”, four hours and 10 minutes long, equating to a half day of work – meaning a 37.5-hour working week would be achieved by nine sessions. However, while the standard British Medical Association (BMA) definition of a session is four hours and 10 minutes, the average duration of sessions reported by GPs was more than 50 per cent longer, the researchers found.

The average duration of sessions recorded in the study meant that a full-time working week was achieved in just six sessions – meaning that far more GPs are in reality meeting the definition of full-time work. And while many GPs are working 11 to 12-hour days, they are only being paid for two sessions a day. The study, published in the British Journal of General Practice , used data from surveys of GPs between 2010 and 2021.

The findings show that GPs have reduced the number of sessions they work per week, but that sessions have .