Following the overwhelming YES vote in our ballot over the summer, practices are starting to take action as part of our ‘Protect your Patients and Protect your Practice‘ campaign.

GPC England have published a ‘Safe working guidance’ handbook to help GPs and practices in the delivery of safe, high-quality care for their patients and communities.  The profession wants to provide care without risking harm to others or ourselves.

 At a time of unprecedented pressures, we must make changes to our workload to preserve patient care in the face of a shrinking workforce and rising demand.  This will help to protect the sustainability and future of general practice.

We recommend you do this by focusing on the delivery of General Medical Services, in line with the needs of your patients and practice, and deprioritising work and activities that fall outside of your core contractual requirements.  This guidance reflects the contractual changes imposed by NHS England in April 2024. We offer ways of doing this that still enable you to stay within the terms of your GMS/PMS.

The guidance outlines how to manage workload effectively, setting safe limits of 25 patient consultations per day in line with UEMO recommendations, and encouraging practices to adopt systems that protect both patients and staff.

The BMA handbook (and summary) can be downloaded and saved from the website:  www.bma.org.uk/GPsSafeWorking.

Further guidance and resources such webinars and FAQs can also be accessed, with patient information posters and social media graphics to download and share.

We cannot care for our patients if we do not care for ourselves and our colleagues.