NHS faces ‘tipping point’ in England where most appointments will not be with GPs

The NHS in England is heading towards a “tipping point” after which GPs will no longer provide the majority of appointments because their numbers are falling so fast.

That is the conclusion of an extensive piece of new research that also shows one in five surgeries has shut and the number of patients each family doctor looks after has soared over the last decade.

It is unrealistic to expect the diminishing number of GPs working full-time to continue providing about half of all consultations, as they do now, according to the study, which has been published in the journal BMJ Open.

“Falling GP numbers delivering the same number of appointments per 1,000 patients seems unsustainable,” warn the researchers from University College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). “Therefore there is likely to be a tipping point in the near future where the majority of appointments in English general practice are no longer delivered by GPs.”

Patients seeing a GP less often would damage the quality and continuity – defined as regular contact with the same doctor – of the care they receive, they added.

“Maintaining relational continuity of care will be harder to achieve if there is a shortage of GP appointments, and if patients need to see different clinicians for different problems this will likely have implications for quality of care,” say the team, led by Dr Luisa Pettigrew, a GP and research fellow at LSHTM.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 4 September 2024