More than a million sick patients – one in 20 who tried – were unable to contact their GP in the last month, research reveals.
Alarming figures have highlighted the difficulty of being seen by a doctor: millions of people are “forced to wait in pain” for an appointment.
Analysis of the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that in just one month, 4.8 million people who tried to contact their GP were unable to do so on the same day.
Of these, 2.2 million patients had to wait several days to make contact, while more than 1.1 million were unable to access their NHS GP during the month.
Even when people did get an appointment, less than half received a face-to-face visit, while more than 100,000 patients were told to manage their problem themselves, the data showed.
The Liberal Democrats, who carried out the analysis, said the figures illustrate the extent of the crisis in our NHS and called on the government to take urgent action to ensure patients can see their GP.
One in 20 people who tried to contact their GP last month were unable to do so (file image), new figures show
Even when people did get an appointment, less than half received a face-to-face visit, while more than 100,000 patients were told to manage their problem themselves (file image)
Jess Brown-Fuller, its Hospitals and Primary Care spokesperson, said: “The crisis in NHS primary care cannot be allowed to continue. Millions of people are forced to wait in pain for weeks just to get an appointment with the family doctor.
‘The government must act urgently to ensure patients can see their GP when they need to.
‘Lack of GP appointments is leading to unnecessary hospital admissions, putting greater pressure on emergency services and costing the NHS even more money.
“Patients have been suffering a crisis in health services for too long.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: ‘GP services are collapsing after years of neglect, but through our Change Plan we will fix the front door of the NHS and change the approach to healthcare. hospital to the community.
“We are recruiting an extra 1,000 GPs and have proposed the biggest boost to GP funding in years (an extra £889m) and bringing back the GP so the most needy patients see the same doctor in every appointment.”