Rock bottom morale

I don't need a survey to tell me what GP morale is like. Because it'll be rock bottom. It always is. I can remember surveys from 20 odd years ago claiming that was where our morale was. But it can't have been. Because, a year or two later, in the next survey, it was even worse. So when we're described as ‘GP's at the coalface', what people mean is that we're mining a pit of gloom and despair. Into which we're sinking ever deeper.

Anyway, there has been another survey, and – thanks to the usual suspects of unrelenting change, commissioning, bureaucracy and pay – guess where our morale is? Yep. Rock bottom. I've become so used to this that I've assumed it's the default mindset of anyone with medical training.

So imagine my surprise when I read the headline, ‘Pharmacists report decrease in work pressure and problems'. Yes. It's true. According to C+D's salary survey, fewer pharmacists these days are complaining about stress, moaning about paperwork or suffering pressure from management.

Despite this apparently good news, Pharmacist Support still described the findings as ‘disturbing'. And I have to agree. Because I can only explain it on the basis of the average pharmacist's proximity to a large number of psychoactive medications. I don't know what you're taking, exactly, but can I have some?