90% of GPs are working extra hours every week! How can you support?

A recent GMC report found that on a weekly basis, 90% of GPs are working beyond their set hours.

Additionally, the regulator’s annual report also warns that GPs are at the greatest risk of burnout due to the high-stress environment and complicated workload, with 25% of GPs showing high burnout risks.

But, what is the knock-on effect for practice managers, and how can they support GPs not just in managing the increased overtime, but in helping prevent burnout?

The impact on practice managers

Increased admin

Due to the increase in overtime, practice managers are having to invest more time into processing the additional hours.

This creates a considerable amount of admin that is being added to an existing workload.

As a result, business-critical tasks are falling to the side-line to make way for processing the additional overtime and the documentation associated with it.

Employee wellbeing

The increase in employee burnout is also creating challenges for practice managers, the World Health Organisation (WHO) categorized burnout as a symptom of a highly stressful working life.

Symptoms of burnout can result in absences and a variety of HR issues, in fact, the report discovered that 9% of family doctors have taken a leave of absence in the last 12 months.

Due to the increase in employee burnout, practice managers are becoming swamped with additional HR issues and absences to process.

What solutions are available?

Practice managers can streamline their internal processes by investing in modern HR software to reduce unnecessary admin and flag problems before they occur.

Our cloud HR software, IRIS HR Pro, automates the processing of overtime requests, helping provide an oversight of the number of additional hours worked so that managers can flag when a GP might be approaching burnout.

Additionally, utilising a modular approach, IRIS HR can be tailored to the exact needs of your GP, ensuring you have all the necessary tools to further increase engagement and support people processes.

For a detailed look into how IRIS HR can revolutionise your HR processes and improve efficiency, click here.