Do you feel you’re waiting forever to get an appointment with your GP? Well, you’re not the only one. Nearly five million patients every month in England are waiting more than two weeks for a GP appointment, according to the latest figures from the NHS.
All patients need to be able to be seen by a GP within two weeks, the government says. 85% of appointments take place within two weeks whilst nearly half of patients are seen on the same day, according to The Royal College of GPs.
Any appointment that takes longer than two weeks are possibly routine ones which explains why there’s a long wait, it shares.
“GPs and our teams are working tirelessly to deliver safe, timely and appropriate care and to give patients the choice of appointment they want,” Prof Kamila Hawthorne, who chairs the Royal College of GPs, said.
“We share our patients’ frustration when they struggle to access our care. However, this is not down to GPs and their hard-working teams, but due to decades of underfunding and poor resource planning,” Hawthorne adds.
This comes after Liz Truss announced plans in September for patients to see a GP within a two-week time frame and o stick to the four-hour A&E target, both have not been achieved.
“Patients are finding it impossible to get a GP appointment when they need one, after 13 years of Conservative broken promises and understaffing of the NHS,” social care secretary Wes Streeting said in a speech on Friday.
Currently, there are around 30 million GP appointments each month in England