One in four GP appointments takes just five minutes or less

NEARLY one in four GP appointments in Leicestershire and Rutland lasts five minutes or less – with patients in Leicester among the most likely in England to have short appointments.

The Royal College of GPs wants 15-minute sessions to be made standard so patients with complex health needs can get the right care.

But the group said doctors are working under “intense pressure” as figures show falling numbers of fulltime, fully qualified GPs, and called on ministers to boost staff levels.

NHS Digital has published figures for the first time on the length of GP appointments.

Across the three Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) covering Leicestershire and Rutland, 415,584 appointments (24.4 per cent) attended in the four months to March this year lasted between one and five minutes.

A further 472,783 (27.7 per cent) lasted between six and 10 minutes, while 325,961 (19.1per cent) were between 11 and 15 minutes.

In the Leicester City CCG area, 25.7 per cent of appointments with a known duration were completed within five minutes – the eighth-highest proportion lasting five minutes or less out of more than 100 CCG areas in England.

The figure is slightly lower in the West Leicestershire CCG area, at 24.2 per cent, while it was 23.2 per cent in East Leicestershire and Rutland.

However, NHS Digital said different practices recorded the length of appointments in slightly different ways, which could affect comparisons between areas.

Across England, 16.7 million appointments recorded between December 2021 and March this year were completed within five minutes – 22.7 per cent of all those with a known length.

Meanwhile, 19.6 million (26.6 per cent) lasted between six and 10 minutes, and 14.4 million (19.6 per cent) from 11 to 15 minutes.

GP practices recorded 29.6 million appointments in March alone, 4.2 million more than the previous month and 5.5 million above February 2020 – the last full month before the Covid-19 pandemic.

On top of that, they also delivered more than 415,000 Covid vaccinations during the month.

An analysis of separate NHS workforce figures by the British Medical Association shows he NHS has lost nearly 1,600 fully qualified, full-time equivalent GPs since 2015.

Professor Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said GPs and their teams were working exceptionally hard to tackle an intense workload, adding: “Increasingly, patients are living with complex physical and mental health needs, which is reflected in today’s figures that show almost 40 per cent of patients being seen for longer than 10 minutes in general practice – and more than half if you exclude those with an unknown length.

“Patients with complex health problems need to have more time with their doctor, so we can ensure they are receiving the care they need, which is why the College has called for 15-minute GP appointments as standard.

“This is not to say every patient will need this time as some simple conditions can be dealt with in less, particularly if it is not the GP they are seeing – for example, a simple blood test might only take a few minutes of a practice nurse’s time.”

Prof Marshall is calling on the government to make good on its promise of 6,000 more GPs and 26,000 more wider practice workers by 2024.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We are working with the NHS to improve access to GPs, tackle the Covid backlog, and grow the general practice workforce to ensure everyone receives the care they need.

“There were over 1,600 more doctors working in general practice in December 2021 compared with 2019, a record-breaking number started training as GPs last year, and we’ve invested £1.5 billion until 2025 to create an extra 50 million appointments per year.

“We also made £520 million available to improve access and expand general practice capacity during the pandemic.”