Calls to the BMA’s mental health counselling service have sky-rocketed, with GPs making almost two-thirds of calls.
The BMA announced yesterday that GP calls to its counselling service have ‘more than tripled’ in the last year compared with pre-pandemic levels.
GP calls rose from 1,347 between 1 August 2018 and 31 July 2019, to 4,712 in the same period in 2021-22 – an increase of 250%.
And the BMA revealed that GPs made up ‘around 63%’ of total calls to the service, up from ‘around 44%’ before the Covid pandemic in 2018-19.
The counselling service is open to all doctors and medical students, whether BMA members or not, as well as their partners and dependents aged between 16-24 and in full-time education.
Last year, the BMA said that calls to its counselling helpline were at an ‘all-time high’ – with a snapshot of data for July showing more than triple the number of GPs sought support in July 2021 compared to the same month pre-pandemic, and double the number in 2020.
It comes as the BMA’s GP Committee for England has encouraged practices to ‘focus on staff mental health and wellbeing’ ahead of world suicide prevention day next week.
GPC England recommended that practice teams ‘put a short amount of time aside on Friday 9 September to come together to reflect on their own mental health and to identify the best ways of supporting each other’s wellbeing’.
They should also take the ‘opportunity to remember colleagues who have tragically taken their own lives, while prioritising how to avoid losing more colleagues in the same way’, it said.
GPCE deputy chair Dr Kieran Sharrock said: ‘At a time when demand and workload pressures across the NHS have never been higher, it’s never been more important to protect the health and wellbeing of staff so they are able to look after patients properly.
‘An exhausted, unwell and demoralised workforce cannot provide care to the best of their ability, and we’re sure patients would not want to be treated by someone who is suffering themselves.’
He added: ‘When we lose a colleague to suicide it’s a huge loss – to their family, loved ones, workmates and patients – recently underlined by the death of Dr Gail Milligan, which sent a shockwave through the profession.
‘We have a duty to remember those we have lost, and a responsibility to do all we can to prevent losing more talented and dedicated colleagues in the same awful way.’
Dr Sharrock said that GPs and their colleagues ‘too often put their all into looking after their patients, but unfortunately deprioritise their own wellbeing in the process, leading to burnout and real damage’.
He added that he hopes practice teams will be able to have ‘open conversations’ about their wellbeing and ‘share some of the excellent resources and services already out there’, such as those from the BMA, NHS Practitioner Health and Doctors in Distress.
The BMA has provided practices with resources to ‘help guide their wellbeing sessions’, including a poster featuring ‘10 tips to help maintain and support the wellbeing of your colleagues and yourself’.
Meanwhile, the BMA has written to the primary care minister urging him to ‘take action’ on GP burnout and wellbeing following the death by suicide of Dr Milligan.
A Cleveland LMC newsletter last month said: ‘On behalf of the profession, the BMA has long been urging the Government to tackle [the] issues that contribute to burnout and worsening wellbeing among doctors, be they GPs or otherwise, and they will continue to raise these issues.
‘Last week the BMA wrote to James Morris MP, the minister for primary care, urging him to take action, and it will continue to impress upon the Government the need to support the workforce.’
The BMA declined to share the letter but a spokesperson said that it had called for the Government to ‘offer support to all GPs and to stop piling unrealistic expectations on to them, only to then blame hardworking doctors when they are unable to achieve the impossible’.
They added: ‘We underlined the need for a change in culture and how GPs are treated by Government, without which we warned many GPs would be forced to leave to protect their own health and wellbeing.’
A major Pulse survey revealed in June that half of the existing GP workforce plans to retire at or before the age of 60, with respondents citing reasons such as burnout and workload.
And in April, it was revealed that almost one in four GPs know a colleague who has died by suicide, 48% say GPs have left due to mental health issues or ‘burnout’ and 84% had themselves felt anxiety, stress or depression in the last year.
Dr Gail Milligan, who worked as a GP partner at Camberley Health Centre in Surrey, died on 27 July after becoming ‘overwhelmed’ with work.
How do you run a healthcare system – when these are the daily questions of the workforce:
Does anyone even care anymore?
Why are you even talking to me?
What is the point?
That’s right, have a go at me. I really can’t be bothered.
What a waste of my time. This is a joke.
It’s you again, and again – is anyone gonna tell this person something?
There is nothing wrong with you, why am I just making up an explanation for this?
You’re so ungrateful of anything, that you know what, it isn’t even worth it, have it – I’ll just refer you. Take what you want.
Have you noticed – it is all eerily quiet out there – in your PCN-ICB new world – the odd spokesperson and generic email, letting you float with one flipper on the ugly high street of public woes. Not medicine – but public impotence, loneliness and societal emptiness. The CQC algae still stuck to your arm with their “updates” on Primary care and some matrix grid toolkit and box for self-preservation and sense of big brother power tripping pettiness. And the GMC jellyfish dragging you down into mundane automation and doing something for the sake of it banter.
Don’t worry – take a break or KitKat and take a ringside seat as this public meets the institutes head on in the months to come and future. Just step aside and practice self-care and yes, not actually caring. The process has already started and it is a positive one of boundary setting, awareness of the web they stuck you in and fear propaganda.
It will do you tremendous good.
Peace and love to all colleagues.
Self care is under rated. We can’t look after others if we don’t look after ourselves. We can’t watch our children grow up and prosper with our guidance if we decide to kill ourselves because it’s all too much. Not all suicides get recorded as suicides. Most of us are savvy enough to make it look like natural causes to ensure those we leave behind get the insurance payout.
It’s just a job. We’re not saving the planet. There will be 8 bn people on this planet later this year. We’re not saving the human species neither. That is doing fine.
It’s just a job. If it’s getting too much draw a line and move on to something else or move somewhere else. Retire, locum, move to Australia for a better life. Take control and take charge of your life. Empower yourself.
Whatever you do leave before the job takes your life.