Your Work Counts
From Monday 10 - Sunday 23 June 2024 the College’s 'Your Work Counts' project team will once again be collecting data from registered members to definitively show the gap between what GPs do and what you are funded to do.
We will be asking members to choose any consecutive seven days (including weekends), within this two-week period, to record the time spent on five key tasks.
This data will build on the results from the first diary study, which was conducted in the summer, and help us understand how winter and summer workloads compare. The data will also help the College develop evidence-based guidelines around:
- safe and sustainable patient loads
- what a fair and reasonable 40-hour week looks like
- ratios for how many GPs per 100,000 patients each region and the country needs.
To join the diary study and have your work counted, please fill in the registration form below.
The five 'task types' for recording data that we asked members to use
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Consultations
Forms of care you provide to your patients (appointments, check-ups, minor procedures etc) through any channel (phone, video, portal etc), in any setting (in practice, clinics, urgent care etc), and in any format (one-on-ones, groups, clinics etc).
View our consultations sheet for more examples.
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Non-contact clinical time
Tasks that relate to care but aren't don't while in contact with your patients. This is a broad category which includes in-box management but also extends to liaising with other staff, interactions with the hospital system and making referrals, letters and reports.
View our non-contact clinical timesheet for more examples.
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Training and education
The training you provide to others, the educational tasks you do for yourself, and the less formal peer and relationship activities that strengthen your networks.
View our training and education sheet for more examples.
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Clinical governance and practice improvement
Work required to maintain patient safety and outcomes at a system level, run projects to address specific areas of community risk, and maintain relationships with the wider health sector.
View our clinical governance and practice improvement sheet for more examples.
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Running the organisation
Things that have to be done to support the organisation from HR and employment issues, to IT and procurement, to financial management and administration.
View our running the organisation sheet for more examples.
Cultural load
Cultural load is most often felt by indigenous people or people whose ethnicity differs from the majority. It's usually experienced by those people as an additional expectation placed on them because of their ethnicity, whether those expectations come from themselves, their communities or their employers and/or peers.
In the context of this project, we are interested in cultural load as it relates to expectations placed on you by your employers or peers. Those expectations could include that you will be the expert in your culture, that you will lead cultural activities and diversity initiatives, and that you will be the facilitator between patients from your community and other staff.
If you join this study, you will have the option to tell us about the tasks or work that you do where you feel there is an expectation to do the work based on your ethnicity.
How to record your data
We've developed this task tracker sheet to help you record your data, all you need to do is tick, mark or draw a line through the 15-minute block under the most relevant task type. There are four tabs to choose from:
- 24 hours
- 12 hours from 7.00am
- 12 hours from 8.00am
- 12 hours from 9.00am
We recommend using the Toggl app if you want to track your data on your phone. It’s available on IOS and Android. Watch this video explaining how to use Toggl.
If you'd prefer to record your time using a customised spreadsheet rather than using the online form, please email simon.wright@rnzcgp.org.nz.
Te Whanake CPD credits
‘Reviewing and reflecting on practice’ is an established CPD learning category. If you complete the diary study for the full seven days, we will send you information on how to claim CPD credits. If you also complete a reflection on your individual results, once we send them back, you’ll be able to claim credits under the ‘reflection’ category.
Results from our first diary study
Media release: GPs working for free to complete crucial patient follow-up, study shows
“Until now, most discussions about the way we work have focused only on the patient-facing aspect. The College wants to highlight the amount of work that is actually required to look after a primary care patient load as a specialist GP or rural hospital doctor,” says College Medical Director Dr Luke Bradford.
Time spent on key tasks
Contact time (patient consultations) - 56.4%
Non-contact clinical time - 30.8%
Training and education - 6.4%
Clinical governance and practice improvement - 2.6%
Management (running the practice) - 3.3%
Other - 0.5%
Hours worked
- 57 respondents (14%) worked all 14 days in the study
- 64 respondents (15%) worked all four weekend days
- 76 respondents (18%) worked at least one 50+ hour week
- 34 respondents (8%) worked 50+ hours each week
- 22 respondents (5%) worked at least one 60+ hour week
- 7 respondents (2%) worked 60+ hours each week
Questions
If you've got questions or would like more information, please email simon.wright@rnzcgp.org.nz
You can also watch this webinar from 15 November 2023 where questions from members were answered and we explain more about why we're doing this project.