Serious medical conditions could remain undiagnosed until it is "too late" as millions of people struggle to get GP appointments, Labour has warned.
The party's shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said he is "really worried" that as well as patients missing out on GP appointments they could be living with undiagnosed conditions until it is "too late". With almost 32 million GP appointments reported in England in October, the party said it means that more than five million people could have been unable to book a GP appointment when they tried to make one that month.
Labour has made new estimates based on the latest GP appointment figures for England with the GP Patient Survey data. According to the survey, some 13.8% of patients did not get an appointment the last time they tried to book one.
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Mr Streeting said: "Patients are finding it impossible to get a GP appointment when they need one.
"I'm really worried that among those millions of patients unable to get an appointment, there could be serious conditions going undiagnosed until it's too late. Twelve years of Conservative failure to train the staff our NHS needs has left it with thousands fewer GPs, and patients are paying the price.
"Meanwhile they are protecting the non-dom tax status, allowing people who live in Britain to pay their taxes overseas. We need doctors and nurses, not non-doms. The next Labour government will train a new generation of doctors and nurses, paid for by abolishing non-doms. Patients need doctors’ appointments more than the wealthiest need a tax break."
Commenting on the analysis, Professor Kamila Hawthorne, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: "GPs and their teams are working flat out to deliver the care and services our patients need. GPs want our patients to receive timely and appropriate care, and we share their frustrations when this isn’t happening.
"But difficulties accessing our services isn’t the fault of GP teams, it’s a consequence of an under-resourced, underfunded, and understaffed service working under unsustainable pressures. While GP workload has increased by 18% since 2019, numbers of fully qualified, full-time equivalent GPs has fallen by 719."
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "This analysis is inaccurate. This survey was published in July this year using indicative data and since then it's been confirmed there were 36 million appointments carried out in October, a 5.3% increase on the same time last year.
"We are improving access to general practice so everyone who needs an appointment can get one within two weeks – including by recruiting more support staff and rolling out state-of-the art telephone systems to make it easier to get through to surgeries."
According to NHS Digital 36.1 million appointments were estimated to have happened in GP surgeries in England in October, but four million were Covid-19 vaccine appointments. In October, 38.9% of appointments took place on the day they were booked.
The figures also show that 43.5% of appointments in October were carried out by a GP and 23.7% by nurses.
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