Changing GP work patterns and the implications for medical workforce planning

Dr Niamh Humphries, Dr Éidín Ní Shé, and Dr Holly Hanlon outline the latest data from the GP retention project

Health workforce planning is about making sure that the right people with the right skills are in the right place at the right time to deliver healthcare. It is a hugely complex task that must consider a range of variables, including changing work patterns, and factor them into future workforce scenarios. 

General practice in Ireland has changed significantly in recent decades – fewer GPs now practise in single-handed practices with many GPs opting to work in larger group practices. The profile of the GP workforce has also changed and more than half of Ireland’s GP workforce is female (52 per cent).

To ensure its accuracy, GP workforce planning must be informed by a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of GP work. That is, policy must be informed by the work-as-done by GPs rather than by the way we imagine GPs work, or how they may have worked in the past.

A 2025 technical note from the Department of Health predicted that 1.1 recent GP graduates will be needed to replace each retiring GP.

However, this prediction assumes that the work patterns of recent GP graduates mirror the work patterns of GPs approaching retirement. 

Insights

In the latest paper from the GP retention project, we present qualitative insights into the everyday work as done by GPs working in Ireland.

Between October 2024 and July 2025, we connected with 20 GPs working in Ireland (13 female and seven male; nine based in urban areas, 11 in rural/remote areas). We conducted two online interviews with each participant GP and engaged in an eight-week instant messaging discussion via Threema (a more secure version of WhatsApp). The focus of these discussions was GP working lives.

Hours

We asked GPs to describe a typical working day and to tell us how they felt about their work.

The length of the working day was a key feature of these conversations. Participant GPs tended to start work early, finish late, and work through lunch to complete their work. As one GP said: “My days in the surgery are long. I generally would get there around half seven and I’d be doing well to leave by seven in the evening.”

Completing their workload presented a significant challenge for the GPs we spoke to, with administrative work a particular concern, as this GP explained: “I was staying in till 7pm to get it done, then I found myself coming in on my days off. It just wasn’t sustainable.”

Long working hours were a challenge for GPs and they used ‘job crafting’ to modify their working week and reduce their working hours. Job crafting refers to people proactively adjusting aspects of their work to better manage demands and improve wellbeing.

Variety

Combining their work as a GP with different types of work was the new norm. It was seen as a way to introduce variety into their working week and reduce work intensity.

One GP explained: “Portfolio practices… where people are doing maybe two days teaching in the university or a day’s teaching, they’re doing women’s health…. So that kind of thing is… is a big change… going in and doing five days a week is not happening.”

By reducing the number of clinical sessions worked, participant GPs were able to achieve greater work-life balance and reduce their risk of burnout. For them, the reward was significant in terms of a reduction in work-related stress and an improved quality-of-life: “Since I… took more control… life is just much better. Most days are manageable without too much stress. If I could just get a little annual leave, life would be pretty perfect.”

As they reduced the number of sessions worked, participant GPs took on other paid roles in the health system. This included training GPs (working as a GP tutor, a trainer, lecturer), working in research, delivering healthcare to asylum seekers and refugees, or taking up GP leadership roles.

Although this meant that participants had reduced the number of clinical sessions worked and might now be considered part-time GPs, they felt they were still working full-time, just in a non-traditional way.

“I’m seeing patients for a certain number of hours a day, but I’m essentially working full-time,” according to one respondee.

“Like I’m just doing non-clinical things the rest of the time, you know?”

Participants cited several reasons for increased GP interest in job crafting and portfolio careers, primarily as a means to improve work-life balance, as this GP explained: “I think the old [way of]… doing five days a week is gone because… I just think it’s too intense for that now.” 

These research findings provide an insight into GP ways of working and illustrate some of the ways in which GPs have responded to increased work intensity. Our findings demonstrate that GPs are using job crafting and portfolio careers to actively design more sustainable ways of working.

Planning

Our findings have several important implications for policy and for GP workforce planning. Firstly, it highlights the importance of generating accurate up-to-date routine data about the GP workforce and their ways of working.

Secondly, there is a need to define what part-time working looks like for GPs – there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ GP career and our findings indicate that GPs are taking up a range of alternative roles within the health system alongside their clinical sessions.

Our data suggests that participant GPs reduced their working hours, not because they did not like practising as a GP, but rather to reduce the work intensity they were experiencing. They felt that this would improve their work-life balance, reduce their stress levels, and enable them to remain working as a GP for longer.

Our data suggests that participant GPs reduced their working hours not because they did not like practising as a GP but rather to reduce the work intensity they were experiencing

Finally, there is a need for policymakers, workforce planners, and politicians to better understand why GPs opt to reduce their patient-facing work. To ensure that GP ways of working are captured by routine data and national datasets, it is important that data collected on GP work records their total working hours, the amount of time spent on patient-facing and other tasks, and their employer (GP practice or another employer).

Improved data collection on the GP workforce and GP ways of working (either via research or routine data collection) will inform more accurate GP workforce planning and policymaking. It will also provide data on the myriad ways that GPs contribute to the Irish health system, all of which must be factored into medical workforce planning and policy.

The full paper was recently published in Health Policy and is available at: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851025002593 The aim of the GP retention project is to gain insights into the everyday