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About the campaign
General practice is being forced to try and cope with inadequate resources, an unsustainable workload, and a workforce under pressure across the whole of Wales, with some areas in crisis. Burnout and attrition are impacting upon the profession and exacerbating these issues.
Just one year on from the launch of the Save Our Surgeries campaign, the overall state of general practice in Wales has worsened. The situation facing GP practices is unsustainable and will continue to spiral out of control until Welsh Government takes seriously the concerns raised by GPs and their patients.
Access continues to be a symptom of the real issue, which is capacity. Current inadequate capacity in the face of unrelenting demand is a product of longstanding workload, workforce, and well-being issues, which correlate to the chronic underfunding of general medical services.
Our Save Our Surgeries campaign asks Welsh Government to commit to a rescue package for General Practice, to provide GPs and their patients with the support they need.
Key calls
- Commit to funding General Practice properly, restoring the proportion of the NHS Wales budget spent in general practice to the historic level of 8.7% within three years, with an aspiration to increase to nearer 11% in the next five years.
- Invest in the workforce of General Practice to allow the implementation of a national standard for a maximum number of patients that GPs can reasonably deal with during a working day to maintain safe and high-quality service delivery.
- Produce a workforce strategy to ensure that Wales trains, recruits and retains enough GPs to move toward the OECD average number of GPs per 1000 people. This must feature a renewed focus on retaining existing GPs and tackling the problems driving them out of the profession.
- Address staff wellbeing by producing a long-term strategy to improve the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of the workforce.
The data
As of 31 March 2024, since 2012:
- the number of patients registered at GP practices in Wales has increased by 126,868 (4%)
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the number of practices has decreased from 474 to 374, a decrease of 100 surgeries since 2012.
- the equivalent number of full-time GPs has decreased by 25%, a further 3.8% decline since the start of our campaign in 2023.
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there has been a 38% increase in patients per full time GP.
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the number of patients looked after per FTE GP has risen from 1719 in 2012 to 2375 in 2024.
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the NHS Wales budget allocation for General Medical Services (GP funding) has decreased as a percentage of the budget by over 2.6% since 2005, whilst costs have only risen.
Our survey
GPs in Wales continue to have an unsustainably high workload, and it is getting worse.
GPs continue to report even higher workloads. This year’s survey saw an overall workload rating of 79/100 compared to last year’s rating of 76/100. GP partners rated their workload higher even at 83/100.
Almost all GPs have concerns about their own wellbeing.
Our 2024 survey returned a worrying 92% GPs who felt some level of concern for their personal wellbeing due to their routinely high workloads.
Patient care may be being compromised and most GPs lack the capacity to meet patient access demands.
A total of 87% of respondents were concerned that patient care was being compromised occasionally (48%) or routinely (39%) due to heavy workloads.
GPs are considering their exit: only half of GP partners intend on being in a GP partnership in three years’ time.
Only 53% of GP partner respondents intend on being partners in 3 years’ time and only 31% of salaried GPs working at practices seeing themselves continuing their current work pattern.
Finances and workload are the main sustainability challenges facing practices.
60% of respondents cited they were very worried about workload in terms of sustainability, while over 80% of respondents either very worried or worried about finances.
Morale is extremely low about the future of Welsh general practice and Welsh Government must act soon.
95% of respondents felt negatively about the future of Welsh general practice following the conclusion of the 22/23 contract negotiations.
Freedom of information requests
Key findings
Additional information
GPs from across Wales signed our letter to the Minister for Health and Social Services, calling for urgent action.
