How does burnout impact GPs globally?

A study of almost 11,000 GPs from 10 countries has revealed administration burdens are impacting doctors across the globe, with Australian GPs spending an average of 15% of their time on admin tasks.
 
A new report from the Commonwealth Fund has laid bare the levels of burnout impacting the world’s GPs, saying this must be urgently addressed.
 
The 2025 survey saw 10,895 GP respondents hailing from 10 countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
 
It found that across nearly all countries, GPs who experience burnout are more likely to be ‘dissatisfied with their jobs, experience emotional distress, and say they plan to stop seeing patients in the near future’.
 
The survey found 32% of Australian GPs surveyed were burned out, compared to the highest rate of 43% in the US and the lowest rate of 11% in the Netherlands.
 
Of those burned-out GPs globally, administration burdens were reported as the primary reason, including for 21% of Australian GPs.
 
In Australia, 83% of GPs who reported being burned out were ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ dissatisfied with the time they spend on administrative work.
 
Around one third of Australian GPs suffering burnout said this was because their patient mix is too large or complex – behind only Sweden at 48%.
 
Of those Australian GPs, 26% said they spend an average of less than 15 minutes with each patient during a routine visit, and 27% said they see an average of more than 150 patients during a typical work week.
 
RACGP NSW&ACT Chair Dr Rebekah Hoffman has spent several years researching GP burnout and said the survey echoed exactly what most doctors feel on the ground.
 
‘Most admin either unnecessarily adds time so there’s nothing that you gain from doing it … or it’s all the unpaid admin time, which is admittedly quite exhausting,’ she told newsGP.
 
‘Most of my GPs and myself either are getting to work an hour before work to do admin or are staying back an hour after the end of the day, or working through lunch, and that absolutely would be sitting on top of your normal clinical hours throughout the day.
 
‘We need to get IT systems to talk to each other, paperwork streamlined so that they populate from our systems that we already use, some simple things changed through Medicare so that we’re funded appropriately for this admin load.’
 
More Australian GPs said they felt burnout because they do not feel their work is valued when compared to doctors in other countries.
 
However, they were the least likely to say they were ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ dissatisfied with practising medicine or that they plan to stop seeing patients regularly in the next one to three years.
 
RACGP President Dr Michael Wright told newsGP the report adds weight to RACGP calls for health authorities to work to reduce red tape for GPs.
 
‘The high stress that GPs work under, the increasingly complex care we’re providing, and the financial pressures, they are all leading to higher cases of burnout,’ he said.
 
‘We know that there’s an unacceptable burden of red tape and administration that takes us away from providing the care our patients need and that really does impact heavily on many of us.
 
‘It’s all the more reason that we need to remove this red tape and better fund GPs to be able to spend time with our patients.’
 
The new survey’s findings correlate with the RACGP’s 2025 Health of the Nation report, which found 24% of GPs are dissatisfied with their hours of work.
 
It also showed 77% are dissatisfied with the amount of administration associated with their work, with this increasing from 70% in 2024 to 77% in 2025.
 
‘The main administrative pain point identified by GPs is authority prescriptions, with 44% of GPs identifying this as an administrative task that could be improved,’ the RACGP report added.
 
The Commonwealth Fund report said that despite the critical role GPs play in preventive care and chronic disease management, they ‘lack support for their mental and physical wellbeing’.
 
‘Physicians report emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment that, if left unaddressed, will undermine the performance of our health systems,’ it said.

The report concluded, however, by praising Australia’s administration systems, saying it has a ‘centralised platform for billing, documentation, and messaging, allowing seamless communication across providers, practices, and businesses’.
 
Dr Hoffman disagrees.
 
‘There are no centralised systems – I use a different system if I’m referring to adult hospitals, if I’m referring to children’s hospitals, if I’m referring to outpatient departments,’ she said.
 
‘We’re using different systems for writing different types of scripts and none of them talk to each other.
 
‘All of them require different log-ons, which is perfectly good for safety and data security and definitely needed, but it’s all adding time to your day and time just to log into those systems to be able to use them is infuriating.’
 
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administration burden burnout Health of the Nation red tape