UK doctors ‘facing high levels of burnout’

A new survey has revealed the high risk of professional burnout experienced by GPs in the UK at present.

The University of Exeter has conducted a poll of more than 560 GPs working in Essex, assessing participants for exhaustion and dissatisfaction using the validated Maslach Burnout Inventory measure.

It found that 46 percent of respondents were emotionally exhausted, while 34 percent felt a reduced sense of personal accomplishment and 42 percent experienced depersonalisation, as expressed via negativity and cynicism.

Rates of burnout were shown to be particularly high among male doctors, those working in group practices and GPs repeatedly seeing the same patients.

The report authors stated: "The NHS nationally and locally needs to review its policies, especially when generating increased pressures for this, the largest group of NHS doctors."

Last month, a poll of GPs by the Royal College of General Practitioners suggested that the majority of UK doctors believe the government's new Health and Social Care will be bad for the healthcare sector and should be scrapped.