20 per cent of GP appointments last f ive minutes or less
STRESSED GPs are rushing through appointments in five minutes or less, sparking concerns over patient safety.
At least 4.6million consultations lasted only one to five minutes in March – equivalent to around one fifth of attended appointments for which there is timing data.
Some 5.5 million appointments lasted six to ten minutes, official figures show.
The speedy appointments raise the risk of doctors missing diseases and prescribing the wrong drugs, with potentially fatal consequences.
The NHS Digital data, published for the first time yesterday, comes after polling revealed eight in ten GPs fear safety is deteriorating.
Family doctors now deal with an average of 46 appointments a day instead of the safe limit of 25, the Rebuild General Practice campaign says. More than a third of GP appointments were still not face to face in March.
Many switched to video or phone consultations during the pandemic but have not returned to normal levels despite lockdown ending.
Some 81 per cent of appointments took place in person in October 2019, pre-Covid. This dipped to a low of 46.7 per cent in April 2020 and climbed to 64.3 per cent in October 2021 as restrictions were eased.
Charities, MPs and patient groups have warned remote appointments risk alienating the elderly and missing issues that can only be identified in person.
Dennis Reed, director of Silver Voices, which campaigns for elderly people, said: ‘We need more GPs so they can take more time with patients and also allow more people to be seen promptly. We also need to be getting the rate of face-to-face appointments back up to prepandemic levels, so doctors can identify problems before they get worse.’
Four in five GPs say they have been stressed, anxious or depressed in the last year, a poll of 1,400 family doctors by
Rebuild General Practice found. The campaign group, jointly led by the British Medical Association, warned there is a ‘workforce emergency’ with significant numbers of family doctors feeling the strain.
The campaign’s Dr Rachel Ward said: ‘Due to decades of neglect and underfunding, there simply aren’t enough GPs – and we don’t have the time we need to give patients what they deserve. Every day we are firefighting acute problems rather than providing the holistic care that people deserve. This crisis is a national emergency and we are pleading with the Government to urgently address it.’
Dr Kieran Sharrock, BMA England GP committee deputy chair, said the profession is losing one full-time, fully qualified GP every day.
He said: ‘This trend, of demand rocketing while we haemorrhage doctors, is pushing the remaining staff to breaking point as they take on more and more each day, to a point which is not safe for them and certainly not safe for patients.’
A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘We’ve invested £520million to improve access and expand GP capacity, and there are record numbers of GPs in training as we work to create 50million more appointments a year.’
‘Every day we are firefighting’