Patients ‘will desert NHS’ over waiting times to see GP

PATIENTS could increasingly walk away from the NHS because of long waiting times to see a family doctor, Britain’s leading GP has warned.

Dr Helen Stokes-lampard said she was fearful that people would seek alternatives to the health service, because they could not face waits of up to four weeks to get help.

The chairman of the Royal College of GPS (RCGP) said family doctors were “really struggling” to cope with escalating demands on them, driving ever longer waiting times.

“My worry would be that this is driving people away from the NHS, that more people will turn to private providers and online providers; that people in desperation will turn away from the NHS, and that would be tragic,” she said.

The RCGP is demanding a cash injection of £2.5billion for GP services by 2020-21 as part of a £20billion boost for the NHS promised by Theresa May. Under current plans, GP services are due to receive £12billion of the NHS budget by 2020-21 – an increase of £2.4billion on the 2016-17 budget.

The funding was allocated as part of pledges to boost the GP workforce by 5,000, but since then numbers have actually fallen by more than 1,000.

The RCGP said extra funds were needed to stem the crisis, by recruiting front-line staff to surgeries and investing in technology and better access to diagnostics.

Dr Stokes-lampard said that without it, waiting times for GPS were likely to

‘More will turn from the NHS to private and online providers in desperation, and that would be tragic’

worsen. “We hear reports from our members that some patients are waiting three weeks, even occasionally four weeks or longer, for an appointment,” she said.

“As waiting times get longer and longer, people start looking for an alternative,” she told The Daily Telegraph.

An NHS England spokesman said: “GPS play a vital role, which is why the NHS is on track to increase primary care spending by an extra £2.4billion by 2020.”