GPs are being ordered to work longer hours to stop A&Es being overwhelmed this Easter.
The diktat comes as new polling reveals just over a third of GPs plan to quit their job in the next five years.
And the 11th annual GP Worklife survey showed 60% of GPs over the age of 50 plan to hang up their stethoscopes by 2026.
New NHS guidance has instructed GPs to provide “extended hours” and to make up any appointments lost to the four-day bank holiday weekend within a fortnight.
Traditionally GPs close routine services after Thursday and re-open on Tuesday morning.
NHS leaders are worried that A&Es already at breaking point due to record Covid rates and lack of staff will face meltdown over the period.
It comes after the Government admitted in a response to a Parliamentary question that fully-qualified GP numbers are still falling despite repeated pledges to increase their number.
Prof Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “GPs and our teams are working under intense workload and workforce pressures.
“Over the last six months the numbers of appointments delivered in general practice every month has exceeded pre-pandemic levels but numbers of full-time equivalent GPs are falling.
“GP teams are working to their limits, in and out of hours, and as a result many are burning out and leaving the profession before they planned to.”
GP survey researchers at Manchester University also discovered that 16% of GPs under the age of 50 were already making plans to leave the profession.
The poll of almost 2,300 family doctors working in England highlighted problems with long working hours, increased demands from patients and having “insufficient time to do the job justice”.
Study leader Prof Kath Checkland said: “The fact that 16% of GPs under the age of 50 are thinking about leaving their jobs is worrying, and suggests that work is still needed to ensure that general practice is sustainable for the long term.”
Prof Marshall added: “This should be a wake-up call that we need to see robust plans implemented to retain highly-trained, experienced GPs in the workforce - and key to this will be tackling workload.”
There were 29,364 full-time-equivalent GPs in post in September 2015, when then-Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt promised to increase the total by 5,000 by 2020.
By September 2020 the number of family doctors had dropped to 27,939, a fall of 1,425.
Health minister Maria Caulfield has now disclosed in a parliamentary answer that it has fallen even further since then, to 27,920.
The Government repeatedly points to record numbers of GPs are in training. However this has not been enough to increase the overall workforce because so many experienced GPs are quitting.
It comes as a number of NHS trusts have declared critical incidents and ambulance delays are at record levels.
Covid infection rates are at their highest ever with one in 13 people in England and Wales infected.
However Covid deaths and patient numbers in ICU are well below previous waves.
Guidance was issued to GPs at the end of last month requiring every area to open for “extended hours” from April 1 to improve access for patients.
The document, seen by the Telegraph, stated: “The PCN [Primary Care Network] must make up the cancelled time by offering additional appointments within a two-week period, unless otherwise agreed with the commissioner.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We are working to support and grow the general practice workforce, address the reasons why doctors leave the profession, and encourage them to return to practice.
“In December 2021 there were over 1,600 more doctors working in general practice compared to 2019 and a record-breaking number started training as GPs last year.
“We have invested £520 million to expand GP capacity during the pandemic, on top of £1.5 billion until 2024, and we are making 4,000 GP training places available each year, to help create an extra 50 million appointments annually.”
