GP appointments surge, workforce shrinks

As reported by GP Online, despite a shrinking GP workforce, UK practices delivered over 30 million appointments in February 2023, marking a significant rise from pre-pandemic levels

The latest monthly total represents a 22% rise compared to the same month in 2019 – and has been delivered by a GP workforce that has 3% fewer fully-qualified, full-time equivalent GPs now than it did in 2019.

Workforce data show that there were 27,502 fully-qualified FTE GPs in February this year, down 984 from March 2019, the closest equivalent figure available for that year.

GP workload

RCGP vice chair Dr Victoria Tzortziou-Brown said: ‘General practice is being pushed to breaking point. Even while stretched so thin, GPs and our teams have been working hard to get patients the care they need, with almost 44% of appointments carried out on the same day they were booked, and 66% delivered in person.

‘But this workload isn’t sustainable, or even manageable. The average number of patients per fully qualified GP continues to rise and is now a shocking 2,298, meaning each GP is, on average, responsible for 158 more patients than they were five years ago.

‘There simply aren’t enough GPs to keep up with the need for our care, and of course, this has a knock-on effect for patients.’

Oxfordshire GP Dr Rachel Ward, on behalf of the Rebuild General Practice campaign, said: ‘Once again appointment numbers are increasing year-on-year, but the number of FTE GPs is not increasing at the same rate.