It’s 6.15am on a Sunday and I am up early and in front of the computer again. I spent yesterday filing 150 letters when my son wanted to play football and the older one wanted go climbing.

I can’t remember the last time I had a lie-in. It’s not because the kids or the cats wake up early for breakfast, it’s because I am working from home, logging in to my GP computer system, looking at patient notes.



When I started 20 years ago in hospital the volume of work surrounding every encounter with a patient was relatively limited. True, the hours were horrendous but the patients seemed to have more straightforward needs, there was less demand for referrals or tests and there was a team around you.



Now I face filing another 50 letters, a similar number of blood results, adjustments to patients’ medication; I have a to-do list that is ever growing.



Cancer referrals have to be done the same day, social services want more and more information for children protection reports. I worry if we miss noticing that one odd consultation between parent and child, or unusual injury, we could be held accountable if something subsequently happens to that child. So you feel you have to get it right all the time – an impossible task.



GPs losing sleep over patient safety fears, says head of profession Read more

It feels like half of my consultations are about PIP [personal independence payment] appeals and “… can you write another letter to support me, doc?”. Every patient encounter produces at least three pieces of work.



I have often said the job can be so fulfilling. Patients are remarkable, their narrative and the adversity they face physically and mentally constantly surprises me. It is the reason I stay in general practice.



But increasingly I feel almost burnt out. I resent being at work for 12- to 14-hour days, not seeing my children through the week, constantly rushing to pick them up when I can, but always distracted by “one more referral to do”.



I have reduced my hours after having children, but being a GP partner, becoming more senior, means the workload stays the same, and if your colleagues go on holiday the work doubles.



I don’t believe it is just my practice that experiences this problem. I speak to many colleagues, both male and female, in London and beyond who are shocked by the sheer volume of work, never mind patient interactions, when they qualify. As a result, new GPs are resisting partnership, working as locums with fewer hours to try to take control.



As we move towards more inter-professional working, with nurse healthcare assistants taking on more responsibility, the buck always stops with the GP.



I often wake in the night, jaw hurting from grinding my teeth, remembering a blood result or letter to write or realising I should have spoken to the hospital about a patient.



It’s a fine tightrope between being a good GP and a complaint coming your way because you didn’t quite pay enough attention. Complaints are par for the course realistically, but when you get one you question your ability to be a doctor.



It can be devastating, particularly if the patients write to the General Medical Council. Doctors know how little support they get during the GMC complaints process. I think what is forgotten is that GPs are human and also need support.



The government has to take some responsibility for placing unrealistic expectations on GPs. The newspapers have to stop being so negative, thinking we all earn more than £100,000, never do any out-of-hours and close the practices for half days for our own pleasure. I would like Jeremy Hunt [the health secretary] or Simon Stevens [the NHS chief executive] to come to my practice to sit with me and be a fly on the wall for a week.

At times I think about quitting medicine. When you dread getting up, dread the days ahead and never see your family.



I don’t think this way of working is sustainable for another 20 years.