The Doctors Association UK (DAUK) has joined calls by leading medical organisations for an urgent extension of NHS Practitioner Health in Northern Ireland.
We’ve signed an open letter to Dr Michael McBride, Chief Medical Officer for Northern Ireland, and Professor Sir Chris Whitty KCB FRS, Chief Medical Officer for England.
It urges them to work with NHS Practitioner Health and the Northern Ireland Executive to commission an extension of the service to doctors and dentists in Northern Ireland.
The open letter has been coordinated by the charity Doctors in Distress and signed by a coalition of leading UK medical organisations, including DAUK.
NHS Practitioner Health
It points out that doctors working in England, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey can all access confidential, expert mental health and addiction care designed for the profession.
Northern Ireland’s 5,200 whole-time-equivalent doctors and dentists are alone in the United Kingdom in having no equivalent dedicated provision.
The signatories draw on published evidence to set out the scale of unmet need:
- A 2024 British Medical Association member survey found that 44% of doctors reported suffering from depression, anxiety, stress, burnout or other mental health conditions related to or made worse by their work.
- Northern Ireland records the highest prevalence of common mental health conditions of any UK region, affecting at least one in five adults.
- HSC trusts recorded a sickness absence rate of 7.1% in 2024 – the highest of any UK
- health system – alongside a 5.6% medical and dental vacancy rate and the longest waiting lists in the United Kingdom.
- Applying NISRA benchmarks to the Northern Ireland medical and dental workforce produces a conservative estimate that mental-health-related absence accounts for between 25,000 and 31,000 lost working days each year, the equivalent of removing between 110 and 140 full-time doctors and dentists from the system annually.
Mental health support
Dr Matt Kneale, DAUK co-chair, said: “Doctors in Northern Ireland should not be left behind when it comes to accessing confidential mental health support.
“The pressures facing the workforce are immense, and dedicated services like NHS Practitioner Health make a real difference.
“Extending this support to Northern Ireland is essential for the wellbeing of clinicians and the safety and sustainability of patient care.”
Mary Jane Roberts, chief executive of Doctors in Distress, said: “It is an outrageous inequality that Northern Irish doctors are being treated like this.
Proven service
“It is so easily solved: NHS Practitioner Health is an expert, proven service, ready to provide the care that is needed. This is an ethical, speedy win. I am sure the CMOs as leaders of the medical profession will act to resolve the issue.”
Professor Baroness Gerada DBE FRCGP FRCPsych, patron of Doctors in Distress and founder of NHS Practitioner Health, said: “Now, more than ever, support for doctors is needed. There is so much distress and pain out there in the general public and our patients.
“We have to keep our healthcare professionals working, resilient, able to support the people that are really desperate.”
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