Sicknote Britain: One in four visits to doctor is avoidable

A QUARTER of GP appointments are avoidable as they are taken up with form-filling or minor ailments, the new head of Britain’s doctors warned yesterday.

This accounts for nearly 100,000million consultations a year – equivalent to the work of 10,000 full-time doctors.

Many are spent on patients needing sick notes, benefits forms or suffering from sore throats and hay fever.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the new chairman of the British Medical Association, said there was ‘significant potential’ to free up ‘tens of millions of appointments’.

About half the avoidable consultations were taken up by form-filling, including patients who needed advice or prescriptions following hospital procedures, he added.

The rest comprised patients with minor ailments who could ‘self-care’ or go to a pharmacy.

GP surgeries are in crisis due to a rising and ageing population, plus a national shortage of family doctors.

Many patients have to wait three or four weeks for an appointment or queue up early for one of a few same-day slots. But Dr Nagpaul said action to cut GPs’ bureaucracy as well as ‘empowering’ patients to selfcare would free up a huge number of consultations.

About 390million GP appointments are carried out each year so if his estimates are correct, 97.5million could be avoided.

Dr Nagpaul, a GP from North-West London, becomes chairman of the BMA’s council today, making him one of the most powerful doctors in the UK. He based his calculations on an audit by NHS England involving 250 surgeries and 5,128 appointments.

This found that 27 per cent of appointments were avoidable or could have been dealt with by pharmacies, hospitals or councils.

Some 16 per cent of patients had minor ailments and did not need medication or could have obtained a prescription at a pharmacy.

Another 4.5 per cent wanted advice or medication after a hospital procedure and could have been helped by staff there.

The rest wanted doctors to sign sick notes or benefits forms, many of which were nonessential or could have been filled in by council staff.

Yesterday Dr Nagpaul told the BMA’s annual conference in Bournemouth that the system was ‘bureaucratic and inappropriate’ and, above all, unfair on patients.

‘It cannot be right for patients to get an appointment, wait an hour for something that, if they had the right support and information, could have avoided that whole visit,’ he said.

‘There are still large numbers who will see us for sore throats, colds, hay fever. They can easily go to the pharmacist.’

Dr Nagpaul said unnecessary appointments amounted to the work of 10,000 full-time GPs.

Professor Helen Stokes Lampard, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said patients could help by asking if ‘they do actually need to see a GP’.