GP leaders have called on the government to back plans to change the way their practices are run.

They are appealing to the government to back plans for longer consultation times and have suggested new ways of organising GP practices.

The plans have been published in a report aimed at addressing the workload issues that they say are undermining patient care in England.

Alongside the British Medical Association’s (BMA) call for more GPs to be recruited into general practice, the report also proposes placing limits on the number of appointments each GP conducts in a working day.

They are recommending that a GP should aim to limit consultations to around twenty five patients a day, as is the practice in other European countries. This is to ensure patients get “safe, effective care”.

Some reports have suggested than at present GPs are seeing as many as sixty patients a day.

The report, Safe Working in General Practice, sets out its recommendations in what it describes as “a climate of unsustainable pressure on GP services from rising workload, falling resources and staff shortages”.

Recent BMA studies have found that 98 per cent of GPs believe their workload was heavy or unmanageable, while more than half felt local services had deteriorated in the past 12 months.

There have also been reports of GP fatigue becoming endemic in the workforce.

The new report is part of the BMA’s Urgent Prescription for General Practice campaign.

Dr Brian Balmer, BMA GP committee executive team member, said: “In a climate of staff shortages and limited budgets, GP practices are struggling to cope with rising patient demand, especially from an ageing population with complicated, multiple health needs that cannot be properly treated within the current ten minute recommended consultation.

“Many GPs are being forced to truncate care into an inadequate time frame and deliver an unsafe number of consultations, seeing in some cases 40-60 patients a day.

“This is well above the 25 consultations per day which is the recommended level based on many other EU countries.

“We need a new approach that shakes up the way patients get their care from their local GP practice.

“The consultation time needs to increase to fifteen minutes with the government providing on its promised funding to make this work.

“As part of the package, more GPs must be put in front of patients so that the number of consultations per GP a day falls to a sustainable level.

“We need to learn from best practice and look at options, where appropriate, for organising GP practices into hubs, where knowledge and resources can be shared.

“General practice cannot be allowed to continue being run into the ground: it’s time for positive change that gives patients the care they deserve.”

The full paper can be read at bma.org.uk/collective-voice/committees/general-practitioners-committee/gpc-current-issues/safe-working-in-general-practice