Patients are told that no appointments are available to see a GP

SIR – You report (August 21) Professor Martin Marshall, the chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, saying: “It’s a misconception that GPS aren’t seeing patients face to face.”

Last week my wife attended hospital for leg surgery and was told to arrange an appointment with her GP for examination after a week.

On contacting her surgery she was told that no face-to-face appointments were being made. Misconception? Chris Davis

Stevenage, Hertfordshire

SIR – I am the mother of an extremely hard-working GP. I am sick and tired of GPS being constantly denigrated. They are demoralised and short-staffed, and constant carping in the Telegraph only reinforces this feeling.

The vast majority of GPS have worked their socks off in the Covid pandemic. They have been seeing patients face to face throughout. If they work from home, it is in addition to long hours in the surgery.

Ruth Mays

Windsor, Berkshire

SIR – I recently had reason to enter a building that houses two large GP surgeries. I saw no one except a single receptionist telling one caller after another there were no appointments. Karen Gwynn

Bromsgrove, Worcestershire

SIR – I am 90 years old and live alone, and have no health visitors. Last

Monday I found a large lump on my shoulder blade close to my spine.

I rang the doctors and was given a telephone appointment for some time Wednesday morning the following week. How will the doctor be able to diagnose me? I cannot take a photo as I have arthritis in both hands.

Roy Bottomley

Huddersfield, West Yorkshire

SIR – Having had problems with face-to-face consultations with GPS, hospital consultants and physiotherapists, and waiting six weeks for an urgent MRI, I have come to the conclusion that the NHS was not saved, and is in fact dying. Pamela Cox

Lichfield, Staffordshire