The Hidden Workload Study (2024 - ongoing)

Please note that if joining after 01/11/24, participants will now be asked to collect data in late Winter/early Spring 2025

Watch our video to learn more about The Hidden Workload Study

Clinicians in general practice are reporting increasing levels of workload. However, general practice workload is only recorded by the NHS in terms of appointment numbers and length. This leaves out the large amount of other work done in general practice, including reviewing results and documents, unplanned patient contacts, supervisory activities, and other administrative tasks.

We will be asking PACT members to record all of the work they do in their practice on a single day, which we will then analyse in relation to each practice’s local demographics. We will also be interviewing PACT members to learn more about their lived experience of their work and how their local communities affects the work they do.

Four reasons to join The Hidden Workload Study!

  1. You will learn more about how you, and your practice, manage and allocate your workload.

  2. You will become a co-author on any resulting publications and presentations.

  3. You will receive a bespoke PACT practice report, which includes benchmarked national workload study data. This can be used for quality improvement projects and practice service development.   

  4. You can optionally become a PACT Champion in your practice, taking on a local research leadership role for this study in a supported way.

Co-principal investigator

Dr Stephen J Woolford 

GP trainee and Academic Clinical Fellow in General Practice

Ethics approval

St George’s, University of London

Research Ethics Committee

Funding and support

Royal College of General Practitioners

Scientific Foundation Board Practitioners Allowance Grant

St George’s, University of London

PPIE Seed Funding Grant

Primary care Academic CollaboraTive

Study adminstrative support

The Hidden Workload Study timeline

Protocol development

Aug 2023

Ethics approval

Jul 2024

Recruitment and data collection start

Sep 2024

Data analysis start

Autumn/Winter 2024

PACT practice reports

Spring 2025

Final publication

Spring/Summer 2025

All practices in England are eligible

Please read the PACT Constitution and the PACT Authorship Policy before joining

  • We want to better understand the daily workload of clinicians who work in general practice and specifically explore the large amount of work that clinicians do other than seeing patients in planned consultations. We refer to this as their “hidden” workload.

  • Clinicians in general practice are reporting increasing levels of workload. However, general practice workload is only recorded by the NHS in terms of appointment numbers and length. This leaves out the large amount of other work done in general practice, including reviewing results and documents, unplanned patient contacts, supervisory activities, and other administrative tasks. We also want to investigate how the health and social circumstances of local communities might affect the amount and types of general practice workload.

    • Record all the work you do in the practice where you work on an allocated day. You will do this using a simple paper workload data collection tool, and then enter this data online. You will receive online training on how to use this tool which should take no longer than 20 minutes. Collecting workload data on your allocated day should take no longer than 20 minutes.

    • You can also choose to take part in an interview, where we will discuss your personal views about your workload and how you think your local community affects your workload.

    We will also collect demographic information about all participating practices using publicly available online NHS resources. You do not need to do anything for this.

    • We hope the results will be used to improve how general practice workload is approached and discussed nationally, and better understand the work involved in providing high quality care for our local communities.

    • You will receive a bespoke PACT practice report after data collection is completed, including your own workload data for you to review, as well as overall workload data for demographically similar practices. This can then be used for local quality improvement projects. Please see www.gppact.org/pact-practice-reports for more information about PACT practice reports.

    • PACT members who complete data collection will be named as collaborating authors on any resulting presentations and peer reviewed journal publications (subject to journal guidelines).

    • Time spent on this study can be recorded for training portfolio or continuing professional development purposes.

      We foresee no significant risks in you taking part in this study

Publications and communications

  • Woolford, S.J., Watson, J., Reeve, J. and Harris, T., 2024. The real work of general practice: understanding our hidden workload. British Journal of General Practice, 74(742), pp.196-197. [Publication]