Shropshire 'postcode lottery' over GP appointments
Seeing a GP is almost twice as easy for patients in Shropshire than for those in Telford & Wrekin, a new survey has revealed.
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) study showed a postcode lottery for patients trying to book an appointment with their local GP when they need to, with poorer areas generally faring worse than more affluent places.
In Telford & Wrekin, 12 per cent of patients said they were unable to get an appointment with a GP, compared to just 6.9 per cent in the rest of Shropshire.
Both areas fare quite well in the number of GPs per head of population, with 48.3 doctors per 100,000 patients in Shropshire and 41.1 GPs in Telford & Wrekin.
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Those figures compare well with the London borough of Southwark, which has just 26.9 GPs for every 100,000 patients - but nowhere near as well as the 602 enjoyed in North, East and West Devon.
Dr Maureen Baker, chairman of the RCGP, said: "Every single patient should be able to see their GP when they are in need of medical assistance, regardless of where they live.
"It is absolutely shocking that, due to the current funding crisis in general practice, patients are now facing a postcode lottery.
"It is doubly unacceptable that those patients affected tend to be those who live in deprived parts of the country.
"Family doctors are working harder than ever – but with increasing patient demand, due to a growing and ageing population, and plummeting investment, there simply aren't enough GPs to go round.
"There is now a desperate shortage of GPs in many parts of the country, leaving the service teetering on the brink of collapse.
The survey, across 212 Clinical Commissioning Group areas in England, found huge disparities in access to family doctors.
Up to four times as many people are reporting that they cannot get an appointment at their local surgery in places where access to a GP is worst, compared to the best performing areas.
Almost a quarter (22 per cent) of people in Bradford raised concerns about not being able to make an appointment with their GP when they needed to, compared to just five per cent in Bath and North East Somerset.
People living in areas with the lowest number of full time equivalent (FTE) GPs per 100,000 patients are most likely to say that they cannot get an appointment when they need one.
The RCGP analysis, based on the GP Patient Survey, also highlights that those patients who experience the most difficulty in getting to see a GP tend to live in the most deprived areas. Eight of out of 10 areas with the longest waiting times for a GP appointment had moderate to high levels of deprivation
The College warned that this was further evidence of a crisis in general practice, with the profession creaking under the weight of a growing and ageing population. This has led to increasing numbers of patients suffering from multiple conditions, and soaring demands for appointments – however funding for general practice has dropped to an historic low, to just 8.5 per cent of the total NHS budget in England.
In response to the funding crisis, the RCGP and the National Association for Patient Participation have launched a campaign called Put patients first: Back general practice, which is calling on the four governments of the UK to ensure that general practice is given 11 per cent of the NHS budget by 2017.
