61 million GP appointments had waits longer than two weeks as Lib Dems pledge to give patients right to see GP in seven days

25 May 2024

EMBARGO: 22.30 Thursday 23rd May

Lib Dems announce five-year plan to give patients a right to see their GP within a week or 24-hours if in urgent need
Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey says plans will be at “the heart of our offer to voters” in election campaign
61 million GP appointments had waits of two weeks or more last year

The Liberal Democrats will today (Friday 24 May) announce a five-year plan to give patients a legal right to see a GP within a week or 24-hours if in urgent need.

This would be delivered by recruiting 8,000 more GPs by the end of the next Parliament, delivering an extra 65 million appointments a year.

Last year there were 61 million GP appointments with waits of over two weeks, equating to almost 1 in 5 (18%) appointments, House of Commons Library research, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, shows. Of these, a staggering 18 million took longer than four weeks – 1 in 20 of all appointments.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said that the Conservative party had “brought the NHS to its knees” and said that the party’s plans would be at “the heart of our offer to voters”.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

“This Conservative government has decimated local health services and brought the NHS to its knees.

“Patients are bearing the brunt of this failure with millions forced to wait in pain for weeks just to get a GP appointment. It is an unacceptable situation and one that is only getting worse after years of Conservative chaos and neglect.

“The Liberal Democrats would give people a legal right to see a GP in a week or 24-hours if in urgent need, so people aren’t ever left struggling to get an appointment. This is at the heart of our offer to voters at this election and our plan to fix the health and care crisis.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

More detail on the Liberal Democrats plan for patients to have a legal right to see a GP within seven days or 24-hours if in urgent need:

Enshrine a new right in the NHS constitution to see a GP or the most appropriate practice staff member within seven days, or within 24 hours.
Increase the number of full-time equivalent GPs by 8,000, half by boosting recruitment and half from retaining more experienced GPs:
- Increasing training places for GPs.
- Making it more attractive for junior doctors to become GPs once they’ve been trained, including career development and training programmes.
- Retain experienced GPs and help them stay in the profession.
- Launching a scheme to encourage GPs and nurses who’ve left the NHS to return.
Free up GPs’ time by giving more prescribing rights and public health advisory services to qualified pharmacists, nurse practitioners and paramedics.
Introduce a universal 24/7 GP booking system.
Remove top-down bureaucracy to let practices hire the staff they need and invest in training.

The data from the House of Commons Library can be found here. The NHS data measures the time between when the appointment was booked and when it took place.

The number of long GP appointment waits has been getting worse and worse under the Conservative government, with the number of two week waits rising 22% since 2022.

Notes from the Commons Library:

This data measures the time between booking and the appointment taking place. This includes cases where the patient requested a particular date, so it is not a direct measure of “waiting times”.

The data includes all appointments in general practice (including those with e.g. nurses or other staff).

The overall increase in the number of GP appointments in England is an important background context for the data. The overall number of appointments in England was nearly 20 million higher in 2023 than in 2022 (+6%).

The percentages exclude the small number of appointments for which the time between booking and appointment is not known.