The 2025 Focus on Physicians survey was conducted jointly by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (RCPSG) and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE). It ran from 12 March to 2 June 2025 with 2,038 responses from consultant physicians across the UK.
Consultant physicians are seeing widespread rota gaps and vacancies
A majority of consultants (59%) report vacancies at their own grade, and two-thirds (66%) experience gaps in acute duty resident doctor rotas, whether daily (12%), weekly (32%), monthly (15%) or less frequently (7%). Only 2% said they never see rota gaps. Based on 1415 respondents*.
Most consultants say rota gaps are harming patient care
83% of respondents believe consultant-level gaps are negatively affecting patient care. The most common consequences are reduced access to out-of-hours inpatient care (39%) and longer hospital stays (28%). Based on 926 respondents*.
Almost half of consultants’ enjoyment of work has declined
When asked about their job enjoyment over the past year, just 15% reported an increase (13% increased; 2% greatly increased). In contrast, 45% said it had fallen (33% decreased; 12% greatly decreased), while 40% saw no change. Based on 1362 respondents*.
Better IT and lighter workloads would boost wellbeing
Consultants identified their top three priorities for improving workplace wellbeing as well-functioning IT equipment (43%), reduced clinical workload (32%) and fewer administrative tasks (32%). Staff vacancies (31%) and more administrative support (27%) also featured prominently. Based on 1398 respondents*.
Enjoyment trends vary by specialty and region
Increased enjoyment was most marked in endocrinology and diabetes medicine (17%) and respiratory medicine (15%) but fell most steeply in acute medicine (56%) and rheumatology (46%). London North West (27%) and the West Midlands (20%) saw the biggest rises, whereas the East of England (53%) and Kent, Surrey and Sussex (52%) experienced the largest drops. Based on 1362 respondents*.
Nearly a third of consultants have brought forward their retirement
30% of respondents say they have accelerated their retirement plans. Among all respondents, 6% intend to retire and return in some capacity, 4% to retire fully, 9% to work less than full time, 3% to take a career break or sabbatical, and 3% to work abroad over the next year. Based on 1356 respondents*.
Those returning after retirement plan diverse roles
Of the 136 consultants* planning to retire and then come back, 51% expect to do outpatient work, 27% teaching, 26% educational supervision and 24% quality improvement projects. Clinical roles include specialty inpatient care (25%), specialty on-call (13%) and internal medicine (10%); only 7% plan to rejoin the unselected medical take.
Consultants remain confident in delivering inpatient care
59% felt confident or very confident managing general medical inpatients, with another 20% moderately confident. 20% cover the acute unselected take, 51% work on the wards after that take and 29% do both. Based on 1070 respondents*.
Specialty work dominates inpatient time for most consultants
When asked how they divide their inpatient hours between specialty care and general medicine, over half (53%) spend 81–100% of their time on specialty work while 11% devote 81-100% to general medicine. A small minority (12%) devote 0-20% to specialty care, while 56% spend 0–20% on general medicine. Based on 1037 respondents*.
Same day emergency care and virtual wards are growing areas
26% of consultants practise in SDEC settings, and half of them run hot clinics exclusively for specialty patients. Another 22% run hot clinics outside SDEC. Virtual wards or Hospital at Home models are used by 10% of consultants: among those, 22% work in that setting daily, 40% weekly and the rest more sporadically. Caseloads range from under five patients (20%) to more than 20 (27%). Based on 1411 respondents*.
Delayed discharges affect most hospitals
68% of consultants reported problems with delayed discharges in the month before they responded to the survey, underscoring systemic pressures beyond the ward. Based on 1403 respondents*.
Survey dataset
Of 2,211 people who accessed the survey, 173 respondents who were not UK consultant physicians were excluded, leaving 2,038 valid respondents.
Of the 2038 consultant responses:
- 91% are employed by the NHS/HSC, 5% by universities, 2% private providers, remainder by hospice, charity or public sector
- Most work in hospitals (90%), with the rest in community (3%), university (2%), hospice (2%) or clinic (2%) settings remaining (1%) stating other
- Geographically, 82% practise in England, 11% in Scotland, 5% in Wales and 2% in Northern Ireland.
If you would like more detail about the numbers of responses to each question in the survey, please contact MedicalWorkforce.DataInsights@rcp.ac.uk