Startling patient numbers for GPS

NEW figures outlining how many doctors are employed at Staffordshire surgeries per patient make for alarming reading.

They show most practices in Staffordshire had thousands of patients for every GP working there.

It comes after a warning by the British Medical Association doctors across the country are seeing more patients than is safe. The statistics, published by NHS Digital, for March 2022, show some startling figures. Of those with at least one full-timeequivalent GP, the surgery with the highest number of patients per fulltime doctor was Lyme Valley Medical Centre, in Newcastle under Lyme, at 6,701.374.

At the other end of the table, Stonydelph Medical Practice had the lowest number of patients per GP, with 483.7766. Staffordshire Clinical Commissioning Groups, which oversees the county’s GP services, has been approached for a comment.

As we reported in yesterday’s Burton Mail, when we published figures for Derbyshire, Clive Newman, director of GP Development at NHS Derby and Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group, highlighted the problems faced by GP surgeries across the country. He said: “In Derby and Derbyshire, as in most parts of England, we have a shortage of GPS and this is down to a number of factors beyond the control of local commissioners and practices.

“The ratios vary between practices depending on many different factors, such as individual doctors retiring or moving, and the location and circumstances of each practice.

“But we clearly need to attract more doctors into general practice, and to be able to retain them once they become experienced later in their careers.”

Getting a face to face appointment can be a problem for some patients but recent figures have shown only one in 10 patients using an online system requests to see their GP faceto-face.

Data, from the Health Foundation working in partnership with NHS England, found that most patients were happy with telephone calls.

Researchers behind the study said the data “provides further evidence that online consultation systems can facilitate choice and flexibility” in how GP care can be delivered.

NHS data for England shows that 60 per cent of GP appointments in January were face-to-face compared to about 80 per cent before the Covid pandemic.