WellSouth Primary Health Network, the primary health organisation (PHO) for Otago and Southland, has surveyed general practices a second time this year testing the morale of general practice staff, asking about pressures they face and what percentage are seeking to leave primary care.
There are 78 general practices in the WellSouth network. Of these, 143 staff responded to the survey.
WellSouth chief executive Andrew Swanson-Dobbs said the survey was designed to get a snapshot of primary care tensions and concerns, as a way for WellSouth to better understand those concerns and advocate for primary care.
"This survey not only informs us of the general pressures and morale, but the comparative data will enable us to build an overall picture and address trends.
"It also backs up what we are hearing day to day from staff at general practice medical centres across the South."
The overall mood/morale within practices has improved slightly since the last survey: there were more who were feeling good/very good, up 62% in comparison to 59% in April.
Asked "How would you rate your current level of burnout at work?", 76% of respondents indicated being being mild to moderately burnt out and a further 11% indicated they were highly burnt out.
"That’s 87% of staff at our general practices who are feeling some form of burnout, with 11% feeling high burnout. That’s alarming.
"These high levels of burnout are not surprising giving the persistent challenges including underfunding of primary care and workforce constraints. Since the low capitation uplift at the middle of this year, increased fees are putting pressure on patients, and this also affects how staff are feeling."
The survey also showed a quarter of respondents were due to leave or retire from general practice in the next three to five years, while a further 20% were considering this.
Dunedin City GP Dr Adrian Hindes said the level of burnout did not surprise him.
"Working in health generally is kind of a busy space ... You can have kind of like a lot of variability with clinical workload.
"Often, GPs like myself own a GP business, so that has its particular demands and stresses. Then on top of that, you’ve got after hours as well. So yeah, there’s a lot of challenges, a lot of business, a lot of demands."
Dr Hindes was pleased the survey revealed the overall morale had increased slightly.
While it was difficult to pinpoint one thing, he said the assistance organisations such as WellSouth gave was critical, while the government allowing GPs to raise their fees would have stemmed some of the financial bleeding.
"That’s good that GPs are feeling a bit more kind of positive, and certainly I feel really positive about what we’re doing as a practice, and I’m really happy to be in general practice."
