Three in four GP partners fear for staff safety as practice workload floods back

Almost three quarters of GP partners are concerned about how to keep colleagues safe as numbers of patients attending practices return to pre-pandemic levels - with access to PPE a major worry, a GPonline poll has found.

Half of the 185 GP partners responding to the poll said that they were either 'very worried' or 'slightly worried' about the government's ability to supply the PPE that GPs and practice staff needed to keep them as safe as possible through the rest of the pandemic.

Only 9% said they were 'very confident' that the government would be able to supply adequate PPE, with a further 20% saying they were 'slightly confident'.

Some 73% of GP partners said that they were concerned about how to ensure the safety of practice staff as the number of patients attending the surgery begins to rise.

BMA GP committee chair Dr Richard Vautrey said keeping staff safe was 'a challenge for everyone in the NHS'.

He told GPonline: 'Even months now into this crisis the government still hasn’t sorted out PPE in a way that means people have absolute confidence that they will have enough to meet their needs, and the growing needs of practices as they will need to be seeing more patients face-to-face for important procedures that can’t be done remotely.

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Source: GPonline, 8 June 2020