Barometer 2025: Deep dive on difficulties providing a sufficient level of patient care

Why we commissioned this research:

In the Barometer survey 2025, two in five doctors (41%) reported that they found it difficult to provide patients with the sufficient level of care they need at least once a week.

To better understand this finding, we commissioned qualitative research to explore how doctors define providing a sufficient level of care, the situations and factors that make it difficult to provide this level of care, the impact these challenges have on doctors’ working lives and wellbeing, and the factors that support doctors to provide high-quality, patient-centred care.

Evidence from this research has informed The state of medical education and practice in the UK: Workplace experiences 2026 report.

What did the research involve?

It involved 40 in-depth interviews with doctors who had taken part in the 2025 Barometer survey. Interviews were conducted between October and December 2025.

Just over half of those interviewed had reported in the Barometer survey that they found it difficult to provide sufficient care on at least a weekly basis, with the remainder experiencing this less than weekly. The sample represented a mix of doctors working in primary care and secondary care, experiencing different levels of workload pressures, and working in different types of roles (GPs, specialists, doctors in training, specialty and associate specialist (SAS) and locally employed (LE) doctors).

Key findings:

• While professional standards and clinical guidance were important benchmarks, many doctors described providing a sufficient level of care as delivering care that is:
  • Timely: delivering all necessary interventions within appropriate clinical timeframes, avoiding unnecessary delays in diagnosis or treatment.
  • Patient-centred: understood as listening attentively, respecting individual concerns, and tailoring care to each patient’s unique circumstances, ensuring they feel heard, safe and supported.
  • Whole-patient focused: addressing not just medical symptoms, but also patients’ emotional, social, and lifestyle needs, ultimately ensuring all dimensions of need are met – even those the patient may not explicitly articulate.
• Difficulties providing sufficient care were rarely described as situations where professional standards or patient safety had been compromised. Instead, doctors described the challenge of being unable to provide the standard of care they would ideally like to because of wider system pressures.
• Doctors described an emotional impact from repeatedly being unable to provide care to the standard they aspire to. This included feelings of frustration, guilt, professional dissatisfaction and reduced wellbeing.
• The main barriers identified by doctors included sustained workload pressures, limited staffing capacity, rising administrative demands, complex organisational processes and unreliable technology. These pressures often required doctors to make difficult choices about how they prioritised their time and resources.
• Doctors reported being better able to provide sufficient care when working within supportive well-coordinated teams, with clear managerial guidance, dependable technology, and a degree of autonomy in planning and prioritising their workload.
• Experiences varied across roles and settings. GPs placed greater emphasis on continuity of care and understanding patients’ wider needs, while doctors in secondary care more often focused on technical standards and guideline adherence. Primary care doctors more frequently highlighted challenges linked to short appointments and fragmented services, while secondary care clinicians focussed on barriers centring on resource constraints and system inefficiencies. 
• While doctors emphasised that fundamental patient safety is rarely compromised, doctors raised that difficulties in providing sufficient care have important implications for patients who are more likely to experience delays, fragmented care, and reduced continuity of care. Doctors have witnessed emotional impacts on patients including frustration, anxiety, and a sense of not being heard, which can undermine trust in the healthcare system and impact the patient-doctor relationship.
• Many doctors described a sense of fulfilment and professional pride when they are able to deliver the standard of care they aspire to. However, persistent system pressures and the ongoing challenge of providing care that meets doctors’ own professional standards have contributed to some doctors considering changes to their careers, including leaving UK medical practice, retiring early or moving away from clinical roles.

Full report

Download the Barometer 2025 deep dive on difficulties providing a sufficient level of patient care