Yahoo News Every Lancashire GP surgery ranked as patients wait weeks for appointments
One in every 10 GP appointments in Lancashire and South Cumbria last month took place more than three weeks after booking.
A total of 825,481 appointments took place at GP practices across our region in March. Just over 80,000 of those, however, had been booked more than three weeks earlier.
That works out as 9.8% of all appointments, an increase from 9.0% of appointments in February, and 9.4% of appointments in January. Our region is marginally worse than the national average of 9.4%.
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Every GP surgery in the country has been ranked based on how well they are serving patients. And people can check how their local practice is doing through our interactive tool.
Simply type the name of your surgery below to get performance results in areas including how long patients have to wait for an appointment, the number of those seen on the same day and the percentage of face-to-face appointments. The 'worst' surgeries in our region have been named, in terms of how long people have to wait to get an appointment.
Top of this unwanted list is Beeches Medical Centre in Preston. Over a quarter of patients (25.9%) wait over three weeks to get in the room with their doctor, according to latest NHS data.
It's followed The Euxton Medical Centre in Chorley (25.8%) and Hall Green Surgery in Skelmersdale (25.6%). Meanwhile, Dr A Bisarya in Skelmersdale has the fewest patients waiting over three weeks (0.3%) followed by Ightenhill Medical Centre in Burnley (0.5%).
Of course, some patients may choose to wait some time before seeing their doctor, but many people will want to get in as soon as possible and the data provides an indication of practices where patients face the longest waits.
You can see how your GP practice compares by using our interactive tool:
Nationally, there is a postcode lottery when it comes to seeing a GP. In some regions though, patients are five times as likely to have to wait over three weeks to see their GP.
In some regions, patients are five times as likely to have to wait over three weeks. More than one out of every six appointments (17.9%) in Gloucestershire last month took place more than three weeks after being booked, the highest rate in the country.
That’s the highest ratio of any Integrated Care Board in England. In Norfolk and Waveney the ratio was 15.6%, in Dorset it was 15.2%, and in Derby and Derbyshire it was 15.0%.
By contrast, just 3.6% of appointments at GP practices in North Central London last month took place more than three weeks after being booked. That’s the lowest proportion in the country.
In North East London the proportion was just 4.0%, in North West London it was 4.5%, and in South West London it was 5.0%.
Dr Amanda Doyle, national director for primary care, NHS England said: “Thanks to GPs and their hardworking teams, millions more appointments are being delivered every month compared to before the pandemic with plans in place to improve access even further. Every GP practice is upgrading their telephone systems to make it easier for patients to contact their surgery, while patients can use the NHS app to order repeat prescriptions and view their test results without needing to contact their family doctor.
"We know there is more to do to make it easier for patients to access GP services, which is why, building on the successes so far of the primary care access recovery plan we will continue to modernise general practice, expand pharmacy services, and offer patients more choice in how they access care.”
