Three out of four family doctors are now too time-pressed to talk to patients in depth about how they might stop smoking, lose weight or get more sleep, the Royal College of GPs has found.<\/p>\n
Intense demands and 10-minute appointment slots mean they also miss opportunities to discuss taking more exercise or review their medications to see if they still need to be on them.<\/p>\n
The time to explore patients\u2019 circumstances more fully and offer healthy living advice has been squeezed out of family doctors\u2019 busy schedules, the head of the college said.<\/p>\n
An RCGP survey of 2,316 GPs across the UK found that 75% had too little time to offer preventative healthcare, such as offering lifestyle advice and giving advice on vaccinations. The results have raised concern about the government\u2019s drive for the NHS<\/a> \u2013 especially GPs \u2013 to do more to prevent people getting ill in the first place. One health expert called them alarming.<\/p>\n The college\u2019s president, Prof Victoria Tzortziou Brown, who is a GP in east London, said: \u201cGeneral practice is dealing with enormous demand, so in a busy consultation we inevitably have to prioritise the problems that most need our attention that day.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will always act on symptoms or findings that need investigation or treatment. What can be squeezed out is the time to step back and look more holistically at how we can help that patient stay well in the long term.<\/p>\n \u201cThat might mean having a proper conversation with someone who smokes. We will of course advise patients about stopping smoking. But in a busy consultation there may not be enough time to explore in depth whether they want to stop, what has made it difficult in the past, what concerns they have and what support or treatment might work best for them.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is often the depth of those conversations, rather than simply identifying a risk and giving brief advice, that requires time.\u201d<\/p>\n GPs already deliver important preventative care every day, she said. But \u201cthe reality is that when you\u2019re working in a busy surgery, with a long list of patients to be seen, there isn\u2019t always enough time in consultations to go beyond the issue a patient has come in for that day\u201d.<\/p>\n The chief executive of the King\u2019s Fund health thinktank, Sarah Woolnough, said: \u201cWith life expectancy in the UK among the lowest of most comparable countries, these findings are alarming as many GPs say they are too overwhelmed to carry out these important interventions, and may be missing conditions that could be treated earlier.<\/p>\n \u201cGPs are often frustrated that the increasing demands for appointments mean they don\u2019t have time to provide the holistic care they were trained for.\u201d<\/p>\n The RCGP makes clear in its report that the NHS needs to employ more GPs and ensure they have more time with patients in order to fulfil the prevention ambition.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter |Every weekday<\/p>\n Sign up to First Edition<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The findings raise questions about ministers\u2019 plan to make the NHS in England move \u201cfrom sickness to prevention\u201d in how it operates \u2013 one of the three \u201cbig shifts\u201d outlined in the government\u2019s 10-year health plan<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n \u201cTalk around shifting from sickness to prevention is meaningless if we cannot get these basics right first,\u201d Woolnough said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the government is serious on prevention, then more action is needed to support and enable GPs to consistently catch conditions and ill-health early, keeping people healthier for longer, and reducing pressures on wider NHS services down the line.\u201d<\/p>\n A separate representative survey of 2,000 UK voters which the pollsters Censuswide undertook for the RCGP showed that 64% of the public trust family doctors to offer advice on healthy living. That was more than trust the NHS website (51%), pharmacists (38%), family and friends (22%), AI chatbots (7%) and social media influencers (5%).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790527570_43_1000.jpg\")
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