JAVID: BLAME GPS FOR HUGE WAITS IN A&E
HOSPITAL A&E departments are under pressure because a ‘significant’ number of patients are turning up when unable to see their GP, Sajid Javid has warned.
Lack of face-to-face appointments is fuelling the problem along with problems getting through to surgeries on the phone, says the Health Secretary.
Waiting times at English A&Es are the worst on record, with reports of patients dying in ambulances as they wait.
Mr Javid told MPs on the Commons health and social care committee patients were not to blame for seeking care where they can get it. But he refused to set a target for what percentage of consultations should be in person.
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has previously warned that GP phone and video appointments are piling up the pressure on emergency departments.
In September, fewer A&E patients than ever were dealt with in four hours and the number waiting 12 or more hit a new high.
In his first appearance at the committee since his appointment in July, Mr Javid told MPs that the Covid-19 rules stopping in-person appointments had now gone. He said: ‘A significant portion of people are turning up for emergency care when they could have gone to their GP – they have stayed away from the NHS when they were asked to and they now want to be seen.’
Before Covid around 80 per cent of GP appointments were face-toface but the current figure is still only 60 per cent. The Daily Mail is calling for more in-person consultations amid fears serious diseases such as cancer are being missed.
NHS England has told GPs to offer more in-person consultations and is to publish appointment data at practices. GPs will also be given more money to increase the number of appointments and to improve their phone lines. Mr Javid said the right level of face-to-face appointments was ‘not about a number’ but about ‘doing the right thing’ for patients.
A RCEM report in August showed that, in the first half of 2021, 8 per cent of patients who could not or did not take a GP appointment went to A&E instead.
And 26 per cent of those who tried to see a GP but found their practice was closed either went to A&E or contacted another NHS service. The RCEM also said the non-emergency 111 phone line was sending larger numbers of patients to A&E than ever before.
President Dr Katherine Henderson called the latest A&E performance figures ‘bleak’ and a ‘stark warning of the crisis that we are heading towards this winter’.
Dennis Reed of age campaign group Silver Voices added: ‘Many of these issues should be dealt with by a family doctor, so A&Es can deal with life-threatening conditions, but they are not.’
However, Professor Martin Marshall of the Royal College of GPs said: ‘Far from intensifying pressures on emergency departments, GPs and our teams make the vast majority of NHS patient contacts and in doing so our service alleviates pressures elsewhere in the health service, including A&E.’