GP access in Shropshire

Healthwatch Shropshire continues to receive patient experience highlighting issues with accessing GP services. As part of their role in helping people understand NHS services they analysed the recent data released by NHS Digital about General Practice appointments in Shropshire in August 2023. They also looked at their own feedback on this topic.

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 the telephone or via video/online channels 
• the percentages of patients who do not attend appointments across the different practices 

In Shropshire practices the average percentage of appointments being with GPs was 47.6% 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 Shropshire is 73.2% which is higher than the national average of 67.9%. The total number of appointments where patients did not attend was 5,784. If these were 10-minute appointments it is the equivalent of 964 hours of clinical staff time in one month.