GP access in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin

This is a report by Healthwatch Shropshire. The project looks at GP access.

Healthwatch Shropshire continues to receive patient experience highlighting issues with accessing GP services. Healthwatch Telford & Wrekin have identified it as a significant issue in Telford & Wrekin and have recently run a survey to gather patient experience.

As part of their role in helping people understand NHS services the recent data released by NHS Digital about General Practice appointments in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin (STW) was analysed.

Feedback gathered about GP access was also added to the report to add context.

Key findings were

There is significant variation in:

• The number of appointments practices offer per patient.
• The ratio of appointments offered with different types of clinical staff.
• The percentages of patients waiting for different lengths of time for appointments from the time of booking.
• The percentage of appointments held face-to-face, over thetelephone or via video/online channels.
• The percentages of patients who do not attend appointments across the different practices.

Other findings:

• In STW practices the average percentage of appointments being with GPs was 45.3% compared with 45.5% across England.
• There appears to be no correlation between the number of appointments offered and waiting times.
• The average percentage of appointments carried out face to face in STW is 71.2% which is higher than the national average of 67.9%
• The total number of appointments where patients did not attend was 8,875. If these were 10-minute appointments it is the equivalent of nearly 1,500 hours of clinical staff time in one month.

There are no recommendations in this report.

There are no follow up actions in this report. However the provider has responded.