UK Health Radio – Medical News Update on the Hour - Patients Waiting for GP Appointments Getting Sicker.

UK Health Radio – Medical News Update on the Hour

Patients Waiting for GP Appointments Getting Sicker.

The BBC has reported that patients may be getting sicker and need more expensive treatment as a result, due to difficulties in getting GP appointments.

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Wales said surgeries were reported to be "buckling under the strain of rising workloads".

It estimates 650,000 people in Wales had found it difficult to get an appointment when they wanted one, last year.  At the same time the Welsh government said the number of GPs working and spending on them had increased.

Dr Paul Myres, chair Royal College of General Practitioners in Wales said “We need to be available to see our patients roughly when they need us and that is not happening at the moment”

The Royal College of GP’s has reported that family doctors are struggling to cope with falling resources and estimated that by 2017, up to 800,000 people in Wales might find it difficult to secure a convenient appointment.

Dr Myres, who represents 1,800 members from more than 2,000 GPs in Wales, said the worry for doctors was that some patients might not bother trying to make an appointment at all.  They would then be far sicker when they were eventually forced to see a doctor and the condition would take longer and be more expensive to treat.  On the other hand a lot of conditions that are self-limiting might resolve and remove the need for an appointment altogether.

He did say that it was always a concern to that people had difficulty getting access to their doctor.

"Just slightly over a third of people admitted they've have difficulty accessing their GP, so we already know that the service is not delivering as it should.” Dr Myers said.

He also said retention and recruitment of GPs was a major issue in north Wales, while across Wales 23% of GPs were over 55 years old.

He added: "When these doctors retire we have no-one to replace them. Who is going to care for our population?"

Amanda Thomas

UK Health Radio – Medical News Update on the Hour

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