Since Covid-19, how our family doctors and their teams work has changed, and many GP practices now offer many more telephone appointments than before.
The Government now publishes data including for how many appointments any given practice offered in a month, whether they were face-to-face or not. It is important to note that in research conducted by the Health Foundation in 2020 and 2021 found only 10% of people were requesting a face-to-face appointment in September 2021.
Many GPs have questioned publishing the data, and while speaking to ChronicleLive over the past year, many others have explained that often patients have preferred the convenience of a remote appointment. The Government is driving to boost the number of face-to-face appointments though, even as data shows the number of permanent GPs in England has dropped year-on-year for each the last seven months.
Read more: Family's heartbreak as renowned Northumberland artist and 'amazing' grandmother dies of cancer
Last week, Professor Kamila Hawthorne of the Royal College of GPs said research “shows yet again how GPs and our teams are working above and beyond to deliver care to an ever-growing patient population, with falling numbers of fully qualified, full-time equivalent GPs". She said that the profession needed more funding and "steps to cut bureaucracy" which would free up doctor's time to deliver care.
Earlier this year specialist magazine Pulse produced an analysis of appointment data which highlighted: "The main determinant of whether a practice has a high proportion of [face-to-face] appointments or has shorter waiting times is the average age of its patient population." Pulse also found "a vast percentage of appointments carried out face to face and more than likely reflects patient preference".
It is hard to compare appointments between different practices - they all have different patient list sizes, varying numbers of staff and serve dramatically different areas. The table below shows how many appointments were held at different practices in Newcastle in December 2022, how many were face-to-face, and how long it took patients to be seen.
The proportion of face-to-face appointments varies massively - from 100% (at Brunton Park) to 52% (at Heaton Road Surgery). However, Heaton Road is also among the surgeries having a more than half of all appointments on the same day as someone requested one. Ten practices in total had more half of their appointments on the same day - with the most being at 60.1% at St Anthony's Health Centre.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said the number of doctors in general practice rose "by almost 500 in 2022 compared to 2021 which is more than 2,000 higher than before the pandemic in December 2019”.
The spokesperson added: “There were over 90,000 more GP appointments every day in 2022 compared to 2021. We are working with NHS England and Higher Education England to grow the GP workforce by boosting recruitment, addressing the reasons why doctors leave the profession, and encouraging them to return to practice.
"We also have an ongoing recruitment scheme which has attracted hundreds of doctors to train in hard to recruit locations, with 550 training places in 2021 and 800 last year – which is helping to grow the workforce in many rural areas."
READ NEXT:
