New numbers on the average wait for patients in the United Kingdom to be seen by a general practitioner reveal that more than 10 million individuals have waited more than a month for these appointments in 2024.
The lack of efficient medical care in the country is leaving large numbers of patients suffering from ailments at home while many more feel their only option is to join the already overrun emergency departments at hospitals. The staggering statistics come from National Health Service (NHS) data which was analyzed by the political group Liberal Democrats.
Between January and August of this year, there were 10.3 million times in which patients waited at least four weeks to visit a general practitioner in England, according to the data. This number is significantly more than the same time frame last year, which totaled 8.6 million similar cases.
Considering the data from 2024, this year is set to break the 2023 record of 17.6 million instances in which patients waited four weeks for these appointments. A total of 71 million appointments with general practitioners had four-week waits during the last Parliament’s time in office.
The analysis also revealed that, in certain areas such as Gloucestershire, nearly one in 10 appointments in 2024 have taken place after patients waited four weeks. Additionally, the data follows a week after a separate review discovered that the country is short by 16% of the amount of qualified general practitioners, based on the nation’s population and compared to its fellow high-income countries.
Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats party, described the need for solving this problem—and issues related to the NHS in general—must be a “top priority” in the national budget. He added that there should be an “emergency” stash of money for patients to see general practitioners as needed, noting that his party would expand this professional field by 8,000 doctors.
Davey further stated that finding a solution to what he called the “GP crisis” is a step that is necessary to “saving our NHS.” He said that solving this problem will allow patients to receive treatment more efficiently and reduce the number of hospitalizations. Dennis Reed, a member of Silver Voices, a political group that advocates for older citizens, added that he is “not confident” about the new government’s plans to “resolve the crisis.”
The Liberal Democrats analysis comes over a year after the release of separate data in July 2023, which saw one in 10 appointments with at least a four-week wait time in the most impacted areas of England. In May 2023 alone, 1.3 million appointments saw this lengthy wait before seeing a general practitioner. This increased by 912,000 from May 2022. In other words, last year’s data found that nearly one in 20—or almost 5%—of appointments to see general medical practitioners involved a minimum wait of four weeks during the month of May, rising by 3.3% compared to the previous year.
This research, also commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, highlighted the worst hit regions of England but showed that every part of the country had increased wait times for general practitioner appointments.
