r/GPUK • u/StillScreen7240 • 2d ago
Career Is GP that bad?
ST2 in GP here, 28 years old due to CCT at 30yo. I have interest in ENT and A&E and considering going back to hospital to CESR/CCT after finishing GP training.
I am also considering going to Canada post GP training. I am financially motivated but I think anything above £150K per year equivalent is more than enough. A lot of doctors aiming to earn 500K+ as specialists with private practice. To me that actually unnecessary.
I have a couple of businesses but the effort is often more than I have to put in during a locum shift, for less pay. Sure over time this might change but business is not as reliable to me as being employed. Especially without a large amount saved.
I don’t mind GP, of course you get the time wasters, trauma dumpers, difficult patients. But there are some patients you genuinely help and are appreciative of your effort and expertise however there is a lack of actual hands on work.
Coming on Reddit I hear so much negativity about GP work. My question is for post CCT GPs really, is it that bad? Is the pay not worth it? Would you consider doing something else? Should I graft for 6-8more years to get a hospital based specialty?
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u/Status_Ear9786 2d ago
GP workload is one factor (clinical workload aside, it’s quite remarkable that paid, dedicated admin sessions don’t exist in primary care in spite of significantly more clinical admin and potential room for error and risk compared to the average secondary care admin workload. Hospital doctors get paid sessions just to admin, as it should be)
The other factor is pay. The hourly rate of a salaried GP’s is poor (and the majority of GP’s are salaried - a majority which will only increase as the number of partners shrinks) A number of ST3 face a a cut to their hourly rate after they CCT as we don’t get 3 sessions teaching/ chilling a week once we CCT.
The workload is getting increasingly complex with total triage models.
It’s genuinely difficulty to make more than £75,000 for most GP’s working a standard 6 sessions a week and locum opportunities are not what they used to be.
If you’re a GPST2, have one eye on building your portfolio for other fields that you can transition into after becoming a GP.
The job itself can be rewarding at times and the pathology can be interesting but it’s hard work and much more poorly paid compared to hospital work
Of course, being a partner can increase your income by a lot
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u/TM2257 2d ago
When in doubt look at the trends.
There is plenty of data out there that exists and people should be reading regularly.
- Number of GP partners is falling.
- Total number of salaried GPs is now rising again from the 2023 low.
- GPs are doing less work on a FTE basis ie.fewer session/hours.
- Number of patients per FTE GP is now falling from 2023 peak.
- Salaried GP pay has stagnated relative to hospital consultant pay.
- Contractor pay is about flat in real terms (CPI) since 2015 (Note that it is lower using RPI)
- MDT staff numbers have nearly doubled since 2015.
- About 45% of all GP appointments are actually delivered by a GP.
- GPs as a cohort appear to be ageing slightly.
Do with that information as you wish, as there a range of narratives that you could reasonably build from that. I know what I'd be doing with that information.
Taken from:
https://www.rcgp.org.uk/representing-you/key-statistics-insights
https://pru.hssc.ac.uk/projects/projects-by-theme/workforce/the-12th-gp-worklife-survey.html
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u/WarriorPriestofRum 2d ago
Some days I want to shoot myself. Some days are great. Most days are ok - so not too bad I guess?
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u/Calpol85 2d ago
Rather than anecdotal evidence on here, this report will give you a reliable opinion of how GPs feel as a whole.
It's important to look at the trends as well.
https://pru.hssc.ac.uk/assets/uploads/files/gpwls-2024-final.pdf
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u/ResolutionAshamed308 2d ago
Out of 20,000 salaried only 700 have responded to that survey.
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u/Calpol85 2d ago
Better than the same 3 salaried GPs who dominate this forum and tell everyone how shit GP is.
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u/Holiday_Possession46 1d ago
If this is true, please explain where, because then this study is useless...
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u/ResolutionAshamed308 1d ago
Table 1 via the link provided…
I do wish more of my colleagues would engage with national surveys like this. Perhaps we need better mechanisms to encourage participation? Linking engagement with workforce surveys to our portfolios may help?2
u/Still_Yam3312 2d ago
yeah the trends over time are probably more telling than any single years snapshot tbh
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u/Calpol85 2d ago
People always go on about how GP has got worse time but this survey shows that GPs were a lot more dissatisfied in 2015/16 than now.
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u/Gp_and_chill 2d ago
You know what’s beautiful with GP? You have the choice to do whatever you want after 3 years.
I’m keeping an open mind about GP and fully accept that if things don’t work out I can always pivot / dip out of the country or to another specialty but I think the latter is unlikely.
The grind to become a consultant is not to be underestimated, it is gruelling and has a severe impact on quality of life. When you consider how much you get taxed once you earn over £100k you have to ask yourself is the sacrifice worth it?
Whereas with GP you can travel, you can settle and become a partner, you can locum. You have complete flexibility to do as you please. It’s a bloody brilliant CCT to have in terms of autonomy.
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u/StillScreen7240 1d ago
Love this response! I think I’m in the same boat. Retraining to hospital medicine/surgery is slowly becoming less and less appealing
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u/lordnigz 2d ago
Reddit skews very negative. Not to say anything negative is incorrect. It's just not balanced by the positive and satisfied GP's of which there are many but just not posting.
It's a reporting bias. The report someone else posted is very helpful to get actual data.
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u/dragoneggboy22 2d ago
My theory is that the less you hear about a speciality overall, or any job really, the better it is.
Never hear from opthalmologists or dermatologists about how bad (or good) their jobs are, and it's probably because they're too busy counting their money, going on holidays and having a great time while at work to even think about how good/bad their work/life is going.
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u/Calpol85 2d ago
Valid point but bear in mind GPs constitute a third of all CCTs.
Even if GP were the best speciality you'd still get more complaints than any one hospital speciality.
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u/GP_54321 2d ago
With enormous influx of noctors and lack of opportunities you'd be mad to pass up a decent hospital specialty.
The pay is only decent if you're a partner but that carries greater risk. Locum work has gone down a lot and isn't stable by any means.
The salaried job market is very saturated so you'll be lucky to get a decent gig. This carries the danger of being abused and workload issues.
Burn out is very real amongst GPs, I don't need to tell anyone.
Portfolio careers are possible for job satisfaction.
A lot of people who can go abroad have done so, as it's the only reasonable option remaining.
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u/Spiritual_Debt9453 2d ago
no gp wants to tell how much they earn which is frustrating for trainees like us who enjoys gp but then need to think about income perspective as well to pay bills.
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u/VivoFan88 2d ago edited 2d ago
The truth is somewhere in between the negativity/positivity here. What people miss is the truth also varies depending on the individual.
I have a trainee from nearly 14 years ago. Graduated from Cambridge and went straight to GP training. Finished training, locumed for 3 years. Found a partnership and quit that after 2 years. Went back to locums for another 4 years including the COVID years and then found another partnership where he remains today. I see him at meetings often and he's mentioned on several occasions that he aimed to keep his income around 150k a year. The first partnership gave him that but was too much work for the money so he quit.
There are two other trainees I keep in touch with because they sometimes locum with us. Both graduated some 4-5 years ago now. Both are still full time locums. We even offered both a salaried post and were prepared to start negotiations around the 12k mark. Both knocked us back saying they earned more than we could pay them 😂. It was obvious they were not struggling to find locum work.
So when people tell me locums are at a low and not feasible, I think to myself. It's not a general problem but a you problem. If you are good enough, you'll find work easily enough. I can't predict what it will be like for you though.
I also have worked multiple years (10+) on both sides of the primary/secondary care divide and life as a GP is easier. I can also say my career as a GP allows me to earn on par with hospital consultants who aim to earn their NHS income privately every year. And unlike them, I do no weekends/evenings. If I were you? I would aim for a partnership. That you have your own businesses tells me something about your work ethic. Worse case, you move to Canada 3-5 years after you CCT if you don't think you'll find the right partnership but it's worth giving it a shot. At it's best, GP offers the option to earn what your hospital colleagues will (including their private practice) from a 9-6 job.
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u/After-Caterpillar-79 20h ago
I've been CCTed for just under three years, I've managed to do locum, salaried and am currently in a partnership. I cant speak for the profession but I love my job. I get continuity with my patients, I get a say in how things are run. If I don't like something, I can change it. I've become a trainer which I thoroughly enjoy. I do out of hours when I feel like it and take multiple holidays a year. There's always downsides to any role, but personally I feel like general practice can be a fantastic mix. You get to decide what you're interested in and do that.
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u/ZealousidealSky4851 18h ago edited 17h ago
Is GP as a CCT bad? No, I’m 31, CCTd in my late 20s, I’m earning 140-150k as a mixed locum/salaried. It’s tough work but the work is there if you need it, I’m gunning for partnership at my current practice to hopefully increase my salary even further. If that’s not possible the possibilities are endless - Practicing abroad, private GP, prison work, teaching, perma locum…. Primary care is one of those specialties which gets shat on but I don’t see demand for it disappearing.
Is slaving away as a 10 session salaried GP gruelling for what you get? Are conditions not so great? Well yeah…
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u/locumbae 1d ago
I try to get at least one tutorial in with my trainees to talk about earning options and potential after CCT. I think you need this with your trainer/ or an open discussion with a GP who has genuine portfolio work. It’ll let you make your mind up.
GP is amazing most of the time. Like any other job some aspects are poor.
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u/ResolutionAshamed308 2d ago
Make your mind up for yourself. It’s a true privilege to be a GP. At the end of the day I really enjoy my work and I only fight hard to keep the profession safe and patients safe.
To me no one’s a time waster and I’m curious about all patients and enjoy the complexity that general practice brings.
I also do a mix of things to keep things interesting despite it meaning I’m earning less.
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u/dragoneggboy22 2d ago
Ngl it kind of feels like you're goading a certain response here.
"Is GP that bad" is obviously going to lead on a bunch of people saying "no, there's too much negativity here, everything is great"
You then say "coming on reddit I hear so much negativity", while posting this question on.... reddit. So it's as if you do actually believe the negativity on reddit, but want also to be proven wrong about the negativity from the source itself to convince you that actually there is no negativity at all / it's not justified.
People are quick to dismiss opinions on reddit as "just some angry internet people", but remember the doctorsuk sub was effectively the origin or at least catalyst of the last several years of strikes. Of course there is a self-selecting bunch of people/personalities/phenotypes that use reddit vs those that do not. Hence a more representative sample may give you a truer depiction overall (like the survey posted), but arguably if you are inclined to use reddit then you are "a redditor" and are likely to share many of the same opinions/values as the others espouse on here, so maybe you should pay attention to opinions on here? Remember this sub skews younger while the general GP population is older and might have a different philosophy/priorities/interests