A third of GP practices may take year or longer to return to pre-Covid capacity

A third of GPs believe it will take up to a year or longer for their practice to return to pre-Covid levels of capacity, even with ‘no future spikes’ of the virus.

The data comes from the BMA’s latest COVID-19 tracker survey, which polled almost 2,000 GPs in England and Wales.

GPs have previously warned that they are battling a backlog of referrals and patients who have been ‘overlooked’ during the coronavirus crisis.

Around 26% of the 1,770 GP respondents said consultations would take between three and 12 months to return to normal when asked how quickly their practice will ‘return to full pre-Covid levels of capacity... assuming there are no future Covid spikes’.

And a further 7% of GPs believed it could take ‘longer’ than a year or that consultations would ‘never’ return to pre-Covid levels.

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Source: Pulse, 23 July 2020