Only around one in five GP surgeries offer extended hours
Only around one in five GP surgeries offer extended hours
Only around one in five GP surgeries offer extended hours to patients seven days a week, according to official data. The Government has pledged to improve access to GPs in the evenings and at weekends through surgeries offering extra sessions where appointments can be pre-booked. Previous research has suggested demand from patients for weekend appointments is low, but the Department of Health says it expects demand to grow as weekend opening becomes "normalised". The new survey of just over 7,000 GP practices for NHS England found 6,164 practices (86% of the total) provide partial or full extended access, covering 49.51 million patients in England.
We know just how much the public value a timely GP appointment, so it is encouraging to see from these figures that local GP practices, by working together, are offering evening and weekend appointments to the vast majority.
An NHS England spokesman speaking to the Health Service Journal (HSJ), which first reported the story
Partial access means anything from one extra 1.5 hour session after 6pm on one day per week, to six extra sessions a week or Saturday opening. Practices can also work as a group to offer the sessions to their patients at another practice if theirs is shut. Around a third of GP surgeries provided extended opening on one or two days a week, the survey found. But full extended access across seven days was only available at 1,318 (19%) practices or another one within the local group. Former prime minister David Cameron pledged that patients would be given access to GPs seven days a week by 2020.
These figures confirm that the best approach for offering extended access is not for each practice to have to do so on its own, but instead to share appointments across practices.
