Safe working means learning to say 'no' (BMA, 16 June 2026)

Summary

We talk about resilience, efficiency, and ‘just getting through the day’. But behind closed doors, many GPs are working at a pace and intensity that is simply not safe. Many who have felt pushed to the brink: overwhelmed, burnt out, and questioning whether they can continue. That isn’t just a few isolated GPs; the data suggests this feeling is widespread across the profession.

In Nottinghamshire, the local medical committee developed a safe working charter to support this shift in thinking. It’s not a prescriptive checklist, but it offers practical ways practices can start to embed safer ways of working. It focuses on two key areas: workload control and practice systems.