There is an urgent need for cultural change within general practice from one of acceptance of ‘quantity overload’ amid shrinking resources, to one of efficient demand and workload management.

General practice workload is both high in volume and complex in its nature, so it may be difficult to know where to start to try and address it. This toolkit is designed to help you identify where you have opportunities for change, and signposts you to other resources which will help you test and implement changes to help reduce the workload issues that are within your influence.

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A word from Lothian Medical Committee –

 Dear Colleagues,

 Now more than ever, General Practice needs to be able to demonstrate the enormous pressure we are under. For too long we have talked about being busy without having robust evidence to support our claims. This lack of objective measures has meant that acute services have received all the attention and investment over the past two decades. As we hopefully exit the pandemic, we have an opportunity to shape services in new ways and get more resources into the Community. Sharing workload data with the LMC will mean we can move away from presenting anecdotes and small-scale pressures to undeniable need for better support. By sharing with the LMC we will be looking to present the pressure across all practices, not criticise the individual, as has been the fear of data sharing in the past.

 I hope you will consider signing up to the SESP to aid your own practice recovery and share the results with the LMC so we can get General Practice the recognition and support it deserves.

 You can opt-in to sharing any workload data you collect with the LMC here.

Dr Iain Morrison

Chair, GP Sub-Committee & Lothian LMC

Please click the button below to download the toolkit. Please save the toolkit to your computer so that you do not need to download it multiple times.

Please let us know if you implement this toolkit within your practice. We invite you to complete this survey to let us know what you think.

Please contact us if you require any support utilising this toolkit in your practice. 

Want to know more about the toolkit or other available resources? Contact the team.