Continuity of care matters to GPs: implications for leadership and workforce planning

BackgroundGeneral practice in the UK faces workforce shortages and declining morale. Understanding which aspects make general practice a rewarding career is important for informing retention strategies and promoting professional satisfaction at practice level.

To identify which aspects of working as a general practitioner (GP) are most rewarding and how these relate to demographic and practice characteristics. Additionally, to provide practical recommendations for practice leaders and policymakers on how these aspects can be supported and sustained.

A national cross-sectional web-based survey of practising GPs in the UK conducted between July and October 2025.

An online questionnaire invited GPs to describe, in free text, what they found most rewarding about their career. Responses (n=955) were analysed inductively using thematic analysis in NVivo V.15. Coding reliability was assessed by dual independent coding. Frequencies of key themes were summarised and explored across demographic and professional characteristics.

Continuity of care was the dominant theme, cited by almost half of GPs (45%), followed by mentions of variety or breadth of practice (26%) and flexibility or work-life balance (27%).

Continuity of care emerged as the most frequently cited source of professional reward for GPs in this sample, complementing earlier work that highlights continuity as the aspect patients also value most in general practice. The erosion of longitudinal patient continuity under current access-focused models of care delivery may therefore carry consequences beyond patient health outcomes and satisfaction, potentially also affecting workforce retention. Re-establishing continuity within modern primary care need not mean reverting to older models, but embedding relationship-based care as a core priority.