One in five GP appointments are taken by ‘patients’ who are simply lonely or seeking advice on debts, relationships or housing, health service boss reveals

One in five GP appointments are taken by people who are lonely or seeking advice on debts, relationships or housing, a health service boss has revealed.

James Sanderson, NHS England’s director of community health, said around 200,000 consultations a day are spent dealing with these non-medical issues rather than treating sick patients.

His comments came after the NHS Confederation’s Health Beyond the Hospital conference in London heard public satisfaction with GPs is at an all-time low.

Mr Sanderson told the audience of health leaders: ‘When you look at general practice at least 20 per cent of GP visits are for a non-medical need.

‘People are visiting their GP because of loneliness, they are socially isolated or they have issues with debt or relationships or housing. Over a million appointments a day in general practice. That’s a lot of people facing social issues.’

Another NHS leader told how many of these patients are also frequent 999 callers and described how they are bounced to different parts of the overstretched health service. 

Jonathan Hammond-Williams, complex care lead at South Western Ambulance Service, gave an example of patients calling up to 35 times a month.

He said: ‘Patients are going round what I call the ‘washing machine of referrals’. It’s about the ambulance service, 111, primary care, community trusts and emergency departments. The person is prescribed lots of medications and it doesn’t really get to what is essentially the problem, which is often something that is social and personal to them.’

Health minister Helen Whately drew on her own experience of being in hospital when she told the conference A&E wards are full of elderly patients who should not be there.

She hobbled to the podium to give her speech, having broken her ankle in a ‘nasty’ road accident earlier this month.

In a question and answer session afterwards she said: ‘I’ve also got several family members with various health problems at the moment so I’ve been spending quite a lot of time in hospitals.

‘I think one of the things that I’ve seen through all of that is how hard it is for emergency departments with so many in fact frail, elderly patients who it’s not necessarily the right place for them to be.’