General Practitioners: Waiting Lists

Department of Health written question – answered at on 30 March 2017.

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Photo of Tulip Siddiq Tulip Siddiq Labour, Hampstead and Kilburn

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of people are waiting a week or more to see or speak to a GP; and what assessment he has made of the effects of access to GPs on attendances at accident and emergency departments.

Photo of David Mowat David Mowat The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health

According to the latest GP Patient Survey, published in July 2016, 19.3% of patients saw or spoke to a health professional a week or more after initially contacting their surgery for an appointment. However, of those who waited a week or more, 33.3% said they wanted an appointment a week or more later, and 28.6% said they didn’t have a specific day in mind. 0.7% of total survey respondents said that they went to accident and emergency last time they wanted to see or speak to a general practitioner (GP) or nurse at their GP surgery, because they were not able to get an appointment or were offered an inconvenient appointment.

The Government is committed to improving access to general practice, in part to reduce pressure on other parts of the National Health Service. By 2020, everyone will have access to routine evening and weekend appointments. We are, therefore, increasing investment in general practice by £2.4 billion by 2020/21 – this represents a 14% real terms increase. We are also committed to increasing the number of doctors working in general practice by 5,000 by 2020, in addition to providing another 5,000 extra other staff, for example mental health therapists and clinical pharmacists. Health Education England recruited the highest ever number of GP trainees in 2016.

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