'Decision Fatigue' Causes GP Mistakes After Lunch

GPs claim patient numbers are leading to "decision fatigue" - meaning you may be better off seeing your doctor in the morning.

Some GPs see 40 to 60 patients a day, making it "impossible" not to make mistakes.

Rachel Ali, a GP from Devon, told peers at a conference: "Decision fatigue is the concept that as we make more decisions during the day, they become less and less good quality.

"I know that I would much rather be one of my first five patient contacts of the day than my last five."

The British Medical Association (BMA) is calling for a cap on the number of patients a GP can see in any one day.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chairman of the BMA's GP committee, told The Daily Telegraph: "This is not just about the number of appointments being seen every day, but about the intensity of that workload, and the number of patients with complex and multiple conditions.

"When GPs are trying to listen and care while juggling huge numbers of patients, they want to practise safely and not to make a mistake, but you are trying to do the impossible."

Dr Monah Mansoori told Sky News: "It's not only the volume of patients that GPs are seeing, it's all the other things that they're doing on top of that - visiting patients at home, looking at results, referral letters, there's hundreds of things they have to do during a day.

"You've got to think about human capacity. You need to be able to be alert and not exhausted and I think unfortunately at the moment a lot of our GP workforce are extremely exhausted, extremely tired, and that could lead to mistakes."

Dr Mansoori is also concerned about GP recruitment: "At the moment, they're having trouble filling the spaces for training.

"When I applied to be a GP, it was very, very competitive, and not everyone got to be a GP, but now, they're really, really struggling."

Earlier this year the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) sent posters to every practice in the country urging GPs to take breaks to reduce the risk to patient safety.