Number of patients waiting four weeks to see GP soars all over England

The number of patients waiting four weeks or more to see a GP rose in all areas of England last year, official figures show.

Analysis by the Liberal Democrats found that on 17.6 million occasions, patients were forced to wait 28 days or longer to see their doctor.

This was up from 12.8 million in 2022, a rise of 38 per cent, and means one in 20 GP appointments last year involved waits of four weeks or longer.

The Vale of York saw the steepest increase, with 28-day appointment waits rising from 57,799 to 103,646, an increase of 79 per cent in just one year.

Bury, Blackpool, County Durham, East Leicestershire and Rutland, East and North Hertfordshire, and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough also saw rises of more than 50 per cent.

In North Yorkshire, where Rishi Sunak has his Richmond constituency, there was a 56 per cent rise in four-week GP waits compared to the previous year.

Sir Ed Davey, the Libl Dem leader, said: “These soaring GP waits show a grim postcode lottery, with communities being abandoned when it comes to local health services.

“Far too many people are being left in limbo, waiting for weeks on end to get a GP appointment when they need one.

“This Conservative government has neglected local health services for far too long. Their failure to get a grip on this GP crisis is causing huge anxiety for families right across the country.

“It should not be too much to ask to be able to see a GP when you need to.”

The research also showed that in some parts of the country the proportion of patients waiting four weeks or longer to see their GP was almost double the national average.

Gloucestershire was the worst area in the country, with close to one in 10 GP appointments involving waits of over a month in 2023. That is equivalent to 9.4 per cent, up from 6.8 per cent the previous year.

The Lib Dems are calling for patients to have a legal right to see a GP within seven days, or 24 hours if it is urgent.

Appointments are proving so difficult to get because the GP workforce dropped by four per cent between 2017 and 2022, with doctors complaining about intense work pressures.

At the same time, the population has been growing and ageing, placing more pressure on the primary care system.

‘Sticking to the plan’

The Department of Health said it was “sticking to our plan” of expanding services offered by pharmacies, and improving technology.

In a lengthy thread on Twitter, Chris Hopson, chief strategy officer for NHS England, said the health service had delivered more than 348 million GP appointments in 2023 – 19.4 million more than 2022.

He said this had been achieved in part by employing more than 31,000 new paramedics, pharmacists and social prescribers.

“We’re rapidly rolling out digital telephony across all GP practices, as planned, to enable call queuing and identifying, for bespoke support, those who call most frequently,” he added.

“We’ve also introduced our important new Pharmacy First service so that people can now directly access advice and treatment from their local pharmacy for seven common conditions.

“The service aims to free up around 10 million appointments a year in general practice by next winter.”

However, GPs hit back, saying it was misleading to suggest patients were attending a GP appointment when they were in fact seeing less-qualified healthcare staff.

Commenting on Mr Hopson’s statement, Annie Farrell, a London GP and chair of the Liverpool Local Medical Committee, said: “Enabling any additional role other than GP or practice nurse does not increase staff in general practice and does not do anything to recover core services.

“It does nothing to get patients what they need - an appointment with a GP. Totally disingenuous to say otherwise.”

A survey by the King’s Fund last week found only a third of people are satisfied with GP services, the lowest since records began in 1983. Since 2019, satisfaction with GP services has fallen by 34 percentage points.

Long waits at A&E

Over the weekend, figures from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine showed that more than 250 patients may be dying each week because of long waits in Accident and Emergency departments.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We are committed to improving access to GPs, and thanks to sticking with our plan for a faster, simpler, fairer healthcare system, we are now delivering 50 million more GP appointments per year.

“Our Primary Care Recovery Plan, backed by £645 million over two years, marks a major investment into primary care services.

“This includes expanding the services offered by community pharmacies through Pharmacy First, which will help free up to 10 million GP appointments per year.

“We are also investing £240 million on digital tools, telephony and training to ensure GP surgeries have what they need to improve access for patients.”