The General Medical Council’s annual workplace experiences report, published in early August, found that 26% of doctors in Northern Ireland were at risk of burnout compared to an average of 18% in the UK, and 54% said they found it difficult to provide patient care at least once a week compared to 40% in the UK. The results of this survey are completely contrary to what the minister and health department officials have been claiming in their consultation documents. The survey found that doctors working in Northern Ireland are at a higher risk of burnout than other doctors in the United Kingdom.

These results bear out that health care staff across all grades are subject to burnout because of staff shortages, and the constant and demoralising challenges they face on a daily basis delivering treatment in a system that has been in crisis for well over a decade. Each new restructuring invariably makes the situation worse. Restructuring and redefinition of services cannot make up for staff shortages and the bed shortages in our hospitals that are a major factor in the crisis we are currently experiencing.

The Workers Party in our response to the consultation documents and accompanying proposals made these points and we have been making them for decades. The Survey also said that general practitioners were the most pressurised group in the medical workforce across the UK. Yet, the minister in his proposals for change discusses GPs doing more home visits, when the lived experience of patients is one of constantly being unable to get GP appointments at their local Surgeries.

It would seem that the minister and his department are developing their proposals in a bubble that bears no reality to the situation on the ground. Before any further changes take place there needs to be a comprehensive and viable workforce strategy in place that has buy-in from across all groups of health care staff, and an end to the rush to privatisation and fragmentation of our NHS.


August 12th 2025