More than one in three GPS turn down appointments

MORE than a third of GPS refused to offer routine appointments in the past year, a poll has revealed.

Covid absences, patient demand and staff shortages created significant pressures in primary care, GPS said. More than 800 family doctors were surveyed by the magazine Pulse. 35 per cent had stopped taking bookings for routine appointments in the past 12 months.

One GP in Liverpool said his practice had switched off its online booking system at night and weekends due to high demand. The workload would have been “unsafe” otherwise, and the clinic still sometimes turned off the system during the day, he added. About 27.1 million appointments were attended, up from 23.3 million in February, according to NHS Digital figures. But 4.5 million, or 16.8 per cent, lasted one to five minutes.

The number of face-to-face appointments has remained broadly the same since last summer, when the Government announced £250million in funding to improve access. But in March, 62 per cent were in person, compared with 57 per cent last August, and well below the 80 per cent pre-covid.

It comes as figures showed GPS were having to care for 2,200 patients each. Some 3.1m patients have been registered since June 2017 but the number of qualified doctors fell by 1,343 in that period. An analysis by the Daily Mail found each GP had 10 per cent more names on his list as a result.