GPs are being told to pick up the phone to more patients as part of efforts to end the so-called "8am scramble" for appointments, a report says. The Government's primary care recovery plan will tell GPs it will no longer be acceptable to ask patients to phone back later in the hunt for an appointment, according to The Times.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said practices were being given support to “make better use of digital telephone systems” so they can “increase capacity to take calls from patients particularly at the busiest times”.
Plans to speed up GP appointment availability were previously announced by then health secretary Therese Coffey during Liz Truss’s short-lived time as Prime Minister. The Times said Ms Coffey’s successor Steve Barclay is due to deliver on some of those plans, including improving phone systems and making performance comparisons easier for patients.
The newspaper said the plan will “reinforce” the push for patients to be seen within a fortnight. Practices will be told to find a way to assess a caller’s problems or send them to another service that can undertake an analysis, including pharmacies.
A DHSC spokesman said: “We are making progress in getting patients to see their GP more quickly. In January 2023 there were almost 120,000 more appointments available in general practice every working day than in January 2022 – almost four million more in total.
“We are also supporting practices to make better use of digital telephone systems to help increase capacity to take calls from patients particularly at the busiest times. There are hundreds more doctors in general practice than last year, record numbers in training and we are close to hitting our target of delivering 26,000 additional primary care staff, including pharmacists, physiotherapists and paramedics, who are providing care directly to patients or supporting doctors and nurses to do so.”
A DHSC official said the primary care plan will be published “soon”. One of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s five pledges ahead of the next general election is to cut NHS waiting times.
In January a coroner ruled 26-year-old law student and musician David Nash would likely have lived if he had seen a doctor face-to-face. Instead he had four remote GP consultations.
