7 January 2016
RCGP Response to Latest GP Patient Survey Results
Dr Helen Stokes-Lampard from the Royal College of GPs, said: “Over 91% of patients have trust and confidence in their family doctor – as a profession, that is truly something that we should be very proud of, particularly against a backdrop of such intense resource and workforce pressures.
“However, the GP Patient Survey results continue to highlight the growing difficulty that our patients are facing when trying to make a GP appointment and this needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
“Patients should be able to make an appointment to see their GP or practice nurse when they are sick, and often this is not something that can be predicted a week or more in advance.
“GPs and our teams are making 370m patient consultations a year – 60m more than five years ago – yet the resources we have available to us have been decreasing and the number of family doctors has remained relatively stagnant. So, the difficulty patients are facing in making an appointment is not because we are providing fewer of them.
“The results of this survey today show how much our patients value general practice and our service must be protected. We need to invest in general practice and create thousands more GP roles, so that we can deliver the care that our patients need and deserve, and continue to keep the NHS sustainable by alleviating pressures from elsewhere in the health service, cost-effectively and in the community.”
Further Information
RCGP Press office: 020 3188 7574/7575/7633
Out of hours: 0203 188 7659
press@rcgp.org.uk
Notes
The Royal College of General Practitioners is a network of more than 50,000 family doctors working to improve care for patients. We work to encourage and maintain the highest standards of general medical practice and act as the voice of GPs on education, training, research and clinical standards.