Lib Dem plan to create the right to see a GP within a week

Lib Dems announce a five year plan to give patients in the Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon, and Wiltshire area the right to see a GP within a week

- A five year plan to give patients in Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon, and Wiltshire a right to see their GP within a week or 24-hours if in urgent need will be in the Liberal Democrat General Election manifesto the party has today announced

- Last year 1,472,967 appointments in Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon, and Wiltshire took longer than two weeks to happen, under the Liberal Democrats plans every single patient will have the right to see their GP in seven days

- Chippenham constituency’s Liberal Democrats have said that this Conservative government had “abandoned local health services” and called for a “fair deal for this community’s patients”

The Liberal Democrats have today (24th May) announced that their five year plan to give patients in Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon, and Wiltshire a legal right to see a GP within a week or 24-hours if in urgent need will be in their General Election manifesto.

Last year there were 1,472,967 appointments that took over two weeks in Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon, and Wiltshire equating to 23.6% of appointments. This included a staggering 465,759 which took longer than a month, 7.5% of all appointments.

The number of disturbingly long waits in Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire have been getting worse. In 2022, there were 1,144,308 over two weeks, or 19.8% of all appointments. Last year this shot up drastically to 1,472,967 or 23.6% of all appointments. 

The Liberal Democrats have said that under their plans, patients will no longer be left waiting for an appointment and risk their conditions getting worse.

The party will deliver the plan by:

- Increasing the number of full-time equivalent GPs by 8,000, half by boosting recruitment and half from retaining more experienced GPs.

- Freeing up GPs’ time by giving more prescribing rights and public health advisory services to qualified pharmacists, nurse practitioners and paramedics.

- Introducing a universal 24/7 GP booking system.

- Removing top-down bureaucracy to let practices hire the staff they need and invest in training.

- Chippenham constituency’s Liberal Democrats said that this Conservative government had “abandoned local health services” and called for a “fair deal for this community's patients”. 

Liberal Democrat spokesperson for the Chippenham constituency, Sarah Gibson said:

“This Conservative government has driven our area’s local health services into the ground. Thousands of patients in our area are facing agonisingly long waits, often in terrible pain whilst waiting to see their GP.

“The Conservative party have proven themselves totally unfit to run our NHS. They have abandoned local health services and it is patients bearing the brunt of their neglect.

“It should not be too much to ask for patients to be able to see their GP when they need to. That is why the Liberal Democrats have committed to a fair deal for this community’s patients and legal right to see a GP within a week.”

“Personally, I will be concentrating on securing additional GP places in Calne and Royal Wootton Bassett, improving pharmacy access for Corsham and supporting our GPs in Chippenham to get the Integrated Care Centre they need." 

Notes:

The data from the House of Commons Library can be found here. The NHS data measures the time between when the appointment was booked and when it took place. 

Source: This data based on analysis of the underlying data from NHS Digital’s Appointments in General Practice December 2023 publication. 

King’s Fund - Public satisfaction with the NHS and social care in 2023 can be found here.

Notes from the Commons Library

This data measures the time between booking and the appointment taking place. This includes cases where the patient requested a particular date, so it is not a direct measure of “waiting times”.

The data includes all appointments in general practice (including those with e.g. nurses or other staff).

The overall increase in the number of GP appointments in England is an important background context for the data. The overall number of appointments in England was nearly 20 million higher in 2023 than in 2022 (+6%). Column Q in the main data table shows the percentage increase for each sub-ICB location.

The percentages exclude the small number of appointments for which the time between booking and appointment is not known.