Leaving a gap

The campaign reminds people we’re all here to help each other and the importance of all round understanding and kindness.

A series of striking images created as part of the campaign aim to make people think about the gap that will be left if staff leave their role due to abuse.

This comes following an unprecedented level of need for advice and appointments in primary care. There has been a 15% increase in demand since the same time two years ago with community pharmacies managing increasing numbers of people, many GP practices receiving more than 1000 telephone calls every day, alongside delivering lifesaving flu and COVID-19 vaccines.

Abuse directed at GP practices and community pharmacy teams means receptionist and counter staff deal with the most insults and threats. As a vital part of the health care team, they are skilled in helping care for people and treating all information confidentially. They ask questions to direct people to the best support and are trying to help. Read more on the news page.

Please share the 'Leaving a gap' campaign message by displaying it in your public spaces, publishing it on your website and via social media. You can use the assets provided on this page to help; there are A4 and A5 size posters as well as social media images, a website banner and hero image and an animated video you can download or embed from YouTube.

Background and insight

In November 2021, a series of engagement interviews were undertaken with patients who had recently had an experience with primary care e.g. GP surgeries, pharmacists etc. Further to this, they were patients that recognised that they were becoming increasingly frustrated with accessing primary care support.

The aim of these engagement interviews was to identify patient frustrations with primary care, and to understand what could alleviate these frustrations and reduce the amount of abuse that primary care staff are facing. As part of this, we also stress-tested potential propositions that could help to shape and optimise engagement and impact of future communication campaigns relating to the abuse of primary care staff.

We recruited to ensure that we had a good mix of people in terms of; health complaint, ethnicity and local authority areas within West Yorkshire. All of whom will have stated to having a recent experience with primary care and feeling frustrated, angry or upset during the experience. Due to the individual nature of each person and their experiences, the engagement interviews were carried out as an individual discussion via an in-depth interview lasting up one hour using Zoom.

This campaign is due to launch in March 2022.  The findings from the engagement with people can be found here. Engagement also took place with colleagues from primary care to design the campaign, and the campaign materials were also shared and test with a focus group of people for their views, as well as other primary care staff.

What local health and care leaders have said 

“Services remain exceptionally busy, and whilst GP teams are working as hard as they can we know it can be very frustrating for patients. This campaign is all about asking people to take a moment to think before speaking with our staff. Abuse is significantly impacting staff morale at a time when the workforce has never been so stretched. It is in danger of driving away staff from a profession under pressure – staff leaving their jobs won’t help anyone and will only make the situation worse”.  - Dr Richard Vautrey, Leeds GP

“GPs are working differently, whilst helping more people than ever before. One conversation can be enough to hurt. It’s important that we all take time to consider our behaviours and how it can impact on others. Being kind can make a huge difference to someone’s day”.  - Dr James Thomas, Chair of West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Clinical Forum

“While most people treat our staff with the respect they deserve in the workplace, sadly, community pharmacy teams are facing increased abuse. We are here to help you with advice and medicines.  Please don’t take your frustration out on our teams. I know things can be frustrating but let’s be kind to each other, it can make a huge difference to someone’s day and work life”.  - Ruth Buchan Chief Executive Officer at Community Pharmacy West Yorkshire

The Leaving a Gap campaign was evaluated from March to June 2022 which included a survey to primary care colleagues.  There are also figures available for each of our local areas Bradford District and Craven, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield District.  The evaluation shows a reach of almost 1,900,000 with the video being played almost 1,630,000 times.

Evaluation Report of Leaving a Gap (PDF)