The General Practioners Committee (GPC) has launched an online toolkit to help GP practices better manage their workload.
The “Quality First” resource has advice on how to “assess and negotiate workload” and how new technology can facilitate workflow.
This includes a step-by-step guide into telephone triaging, online appointment booking and prescribing systems.
The GPC describes it as a “practical support to manage your daily work and examples of different ways of working under pressure and at scale.”
The resources also include template letters, guidance in forming GP federations and clusters, and advice on how to more efficiently use staff and other community organisations.
The guide also includes a section on “patient empowerment and self-care” to encourage patients to seek advice and health information from other reliable sources.
The resource’s launch follows a speech by Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the GPC, in which he said that “an environment of unmanageable workload” is preventing GPs from providing “safe, quality care”.
Furthermore, Nagpaul highlighted the “burgeoning workload” as 70 million more patients see their GPs annually compared to seven years ago.
In a BMA newsletter, Nagpaul added: “The BMA GPs committee is in active dialogue with governments across the four nations to address this with new resources and support for general practice.
“Meanwhile, given we are short of several thousand GPs, it is crucial that as a profession we are enabled to stem excessive, inappropriate or unresourced work, to help GPs to provide safe, quality care to patients.”
“We intend that this site will become a dynamic resource, being added to and evolving as per feedback and new examples that we receive from around the country,” he said.
“We hope this will be part of creating a sense of empowerment and resilience for GPs, at a time of overwhelming pressures,” he added.
