Troubling rise in waits for GP appointments in Staffordshire.

House of Commons Library research commissioned by the Liberal Democrats has revealed long and generally rising waits to be seen in general practice despite more appointments being given. And yet GPs are starting to be made redundant!

 The data below is for Stafford and Surrounds and East Staffordshire. In the following text the first figure given is for Stafford and Surrounds, the second for East Staffordshire. It measures the time between when the appointment was booked and when it took place

Four week waits for a GP appointment reached 48705 and 29115 last year, that’s a 13% and 33% increase on the number of patients having to wait compared to 2022.

Similar figures for 2 week waits were 158894 and 124707. That was 5% and 23% respectively up on 2022.

Meanwhile the total appointments given have risen by 8 and 6% in the two areas showing that general practice has been working hard to try to keep up.

Our government is letting the community down with their neglect of local health services. The Liberal Democrats call for a legal right to get a GP appointment within seven days, or 24 hours if in urgent need.

Their policy would enshrine this right in the NHS Constitution, putting a duty on the government and health service to make sure it happens. It would be achieved by increasing the number of GPs, and increasing the number of nurses and pharmacists fully qualified to prescribe day to day medicines.

But sadly some of the present government and NHS policies and decisions work against improvement. Although extra staff in general practice are funded this excludes doctors! So now, whilst we have a growing shortage of GPs, some GPs, keen to work, find themselves out of a job.