Emergency relief needed for GP appointments

The MP for Taunton and Wellington, Gideon Amos, has called for an emergency package to drastically improve wait times for GP appointments.

It comes after new research revealed that, since January, 188,811 appointments in Somerset have had waits of over 28 days. That’s up from 65,230 at the same point five years ago, an increase of 180%.

Waits of more than two weeks across the county have increased from 230,617 in 2020 to 546,203 this year, an increase of 137%.

Gideon has welcomed the recent increase in the number of GPs serving Wellington but called for an emergency package to end the crisis, and for the Government to deliver a right to a GP appointment within seven days, or 24 hours if urgent, by recruiting thousands more doctors.

He said: “While our GPs are working increasingly hard, too many residents here in Taunton and Wellington find it really difficult to get an appointment. The fact that the number of people waiting over a month has doubled is unacceptable if we are going to get our NHS back to where it should be.

“The appointment of five new GPs at Wellington Medical Centre - following the closure of the town’s Luson Surgery - is welcome but just not enough for our constituency as a whole.

“The Conservatives completely failed our NHS, but Labour are just not providing the answers we need to this growing crisis.

He added: “Together with Liberal Democrat colleagues, I am calling for an emergency package to boost GP services with a dedicated fund to open surgeries, a 24/7 booking system via 111 and both retention and training and recruitment drives to get many more family doctors.

“The Government should deliver a right for every patient to be seen within seven days or 24 hours if urgent, so that no one is denied care when they need it."

The emergency measures would include a strategic fund to reopen surgeries, dedicated local initiatives to ensure nowhere becomes a “GP desert” and the introduction of a 24/7 GP booking system to end the “8am scramble”, with 111 call handlers trained to become GP receptionists.

The House of Commons Library research, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, found that nationally, since Labour have been in power, patients have seen the highest number of two week and four week waits to see a GP since 2020.

It follows previous record numbers of two and four week waits under the last Conservative government.

The data also found that there has been a 121% increase in patients waiting over 14 days for a GP appointment since the same period in 2020 across England, rising from 19.7 million appointments that took this long to 43.5 million appointments.

There has been a 123% increase for those waiting over 28 days, from 5.8 million five years ago to 12.9 million today.