Doctors under pressure - the latest research

We are delighted to have contributed to the GMC’s latest State of Medical Education and Practice Report. Our full research report will be published in the New Year but some of our emerging findings are covered in Chapter 3 of the GMC’s annual report.

This project, “ Adapting, coping, compromising” has highlighted the strategies that doctors are forced to adopt because of workplace pressures and raises the point that these may be unsustainable. The evidence we gathered shows that the pressure and heavy workloads doctors report experiencing are, in some cases, presenting risks to patient safety and slips in the quality of care.

We undertook 40 in depth interviews with doctors working around the UK in various locations and settings. We followed this up with an online bulletin board to allow doctors to share their day to day practice in the face of the pressures they experience.