General Practitioners' Workload Is Increasing in the U.K.

Burnout is endemic among primary care physicians in the U.S. (NEJM JW Gen Med Oct 1 2012 and Arch Intern Med 2012; 172:1377), but objective data on physician workload are sparse. To estimate trends in general physicians' workloads, British researchers examined electronic records of more than 100 million continuity outpatient encounters that occurred at 398 English general practices from 2007 through 2014.

For general physicians, overall encounters per patient-year increased by 12.4% during the study period, including a rise of 6.4% in face-to-face visits (with mean duration rising by 6.7%) and a doubling in the number of telephone encounters. Total time spent on face-to-face office visits increased by 13.5%, and total time spent on phone enc…