Almost THIRD of GPs ‘forced’ to stop taking bookings for routine appointments

Almost a third of GPs had to stop taking bookings for routine appointments in the past year because of overwhelming demand, a poll suggests.

Receptionists also faced abuse from patients when they were unable to offer a consultation amid a shortage of family doctors.

The survey of 408 GPs for Pulse magazine found 30 per cent had to stop taking bookings for routine appointments between June 2022 and June 2023.

New regulations came into force in May that stopped practices asking patients to contact them at a later date. They must now be assessed the first time they get in contact, or sent in the direction of other appropriate services.

A GP from Wiltshire, who wished to remain anonymous, said her practice is ‘incredibly busy, as busy as winter almost, and generally can only offer routine appointments in two weeks’ time’.

According to figures published by NHS Digital last month, around 29.7 million appointments were recorded on GP practice appointment systems in June.

Of those, 46.8 per cent were carried out by a GP and 20.7 per cent by nurses. Only 69 per cent were face-to-face.

On Thursday, figures published by NHS England revealed that waiting lists reached a new record high of 7.6 million in June.

One GP, Dr Zishan Syed, said: ‘All the Government cares about is reducing secondary care waiting lists. GPs are seen as an unlimited resource to be abused to achieve this.’

Professor Kamila Hawthorne, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said the Pulse survey ‘makes for sad but unsurprising reading’.

She added: ‘GPs want to do the very best we can for all our patients and will only cancel routine appointments as a last resort, but we cannot work any harder. We are delivering more appointments overall compared with before the pandemic, yet we have nearly 970 fewer full-time, fully qualified GPs compared with 2019.

‘GP teams handle most NHS patient contacts and in doing so alleviate pressure across the NHS, including in A&E.

‘But for this to work, general practice must be properly resourced and staffed.’

Professor Hawthorne called for ‘urgent, significant investment’ from the Government to retain GPs, on top of its plans to train more medical staff. She also said steps must be taken to cut health service bureaucracy.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said the survey was ‘misleading’, adding: ‘Fewer than 2 per cent of all general practices said they had to stop routine appointments at any point during the past year.

‘There are more than 2,000 additional doctors in general practice compared with June 2019, we hit our target of 26,000 additional direct patient care staff a year early, have record numbers of trainee GPs and there are more appointments available.’