Understand the full extent of existing workload

BMA Scotland recommends that all practices should seek to review the actual work being carried out by GP partners, in particular the amount of time spent working outside contracted sessions. The BMA’s GP Diary app is available to members and can assist in this process. 

It is particularly important for practices to carry out this exercise at this time as they make decisions on how workforce funding will be used to increase capacity within their practice. The current expansion in practice workforce will give practices the opportunity to make changes to working practices that would be far more challenging without the availability of that resource.

Build time to do all work within working patterns

Practices should aspire to build adequate time for non patient-facing work into GPs' working templates. Time spent doing other critical activities is no less important to patient outcomes than direct patient contact. Doing this while making no overall change to the amount of time a GP is contracted for may ordinarily have meant a reduction in patient contacts, but the new workforce funding for 2026-2029 will enable practices to use their expanding capacity to both better support the workload of GPs and to maintain or improve consultation availability to patients.

Moving from sessions to hours

Sessions have been the basic unit of GP time for decades, but come from a time when individual GPs would be expected to manage to provide whatever level of care their patients required. In today’s modern health system with the enormous pressures GPs face and so much work falling outside contracted sessions, BMA Scotland believes that sessions are no longer helpful as a unit of GP time.

Instead, we recommend that practices begin to consider GP time in hours. While hours are always likely to be indicative rather than directive for partners, this will help to enable practices to build adequate time for all of a GP’s responsibilities into working weeks. It will also provide more flexibility to practices for changes in working patterns to be made in units of less than a full session.

Once practices have successfully achieved more sustainable working patterns that encapsulate all aspects of GP work, they should consider reflecting these changes in their partnership agreements.

Develop an iterative plan over multiple years

Bringing all aspects of GP work into contracted time along with the other suggestions in this guidance represents a radical change to the way practices have operated for a very long time. Practices will likely need to plan to implement changes in a phased approach and should therefore develop a clear plan for what they want the practice to look like several years into the future and what steps they will need to take to get there.

The recommendations in this guidance should be used in conjunction with BMA Scotland’s safe workload guidance and guidance on maintaining practice profitability to support practices in reaching a future where GP careers are safe, sustainable and fairly remunerated for the critical role they perform.