A record number of patients face a four-week wait to see their GP – with more than 10million enduring such waits already this year, damning figures show.
Campaigners warn the delays are forcing people to attend overcrowded A&E departments or putting them off seeking care, leaving many to deteriorate at home.
There were 10.3 million waits of four weeks or more for a GP appointment in England in the first seven months of this year, according to analysis of NHS data by the Liberal Democrats.
This is far higher than the same period in 2023, when the figure stood at 8.6 million – suggesting 2024 is on track to beat last year’s record of 17.6million four-week waits for a GP appointment. The figures show 71 million GP appointments had waits of four weeks or longer over the course of the last Parliament.
The Lib Dems used their annual conference in Brighton this weekend to call for an extra £9.4 billion of funding for the NHS at next month’s Budget and for patients to be given a legal right to see a GP within a week – or 24 hours if urgent.
Campaigners warn the delays are forcing people to attend overcrowded A&E departments. (Stock photo)
There were 10.3 million waits of four weeks or more for a GP appointment in England in the first seven months of this year. (Stock photo)
The Government has vowed to tackle the ‘8am scramble’ for an appointment. (Stock photo)
The figures show 71 million GP appointments had waits of four weeks or longer over the course of the last Parliament. (Stock image)
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey (pictured) said the NHS should be the ‘top priority’ in the Budget
Their analysis shows in some areas of the country almost one in ten appointments so far this year have occurred after a wait of four weeks or more. The highest rate of 10.1 per cent is in Gloucestershire – double the national average of 5 per cent. It comes after Lord Ara Darzi’s NHS review published last week found the UK has 16 per cent fewer fully qualified GPs than other high-income countries relative to our population.
The Government has vowed to tackle the ‘8am scramble’ for an appointment, with just 49.7 per cent now finding it ‘easy’ to reach their surgery on the phone – down from 80.8 per cent in 2012, according to the NHS GP Patient Survey.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said the NHS should be the ‘top priority’ in the Budget, with an ’emergency’ injection of cash so patients can see a GP when they need one. His party says it would increase the number of GPs by 8,000.
Mr Davey said: ‘Fixing the GP crisis is critical to saving our NHS. If people can get seen quicker, fewer will end up in hospital. That’s better for them, for the NHS and for taxpayers.’
Dennis Reed at over-60s campaign group Silver Voices said: ‘We are not confident plans so far announced by the new Government are sufficient to resolve the crisis enveloping the NHS.’
Professor Kamila Hawthorne, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said they shared patients’ frustrations but there were too few doctors to meet demand.
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She added: ‘We want to see funding for general practice in the Budget. But introducing arbitrary targets would worsen the situation. They would prioritise speedy access over continuity of care, which we know has benefits for patients and the health service.’
The figures do not make clear if patients wanted to book an appointment four weeks in advance or had to wait this long. They measure only appointments that were booked, so if one was refused for being too far in the future, it would not be evident.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said last night: ‘These findings show how much general practice has been neglected. This government will fix this by shifting the focus of healthcare out of the hospital and into the community.’
