Advertisement

NHS pledges to help patients beat the ‘8am rush’ under new GP phoneline plan

NHS would have hit its target to eliminate waits of more than 18 months if not for the junior doctors’ strikes - Getty Images
NHS would have hit its target to eliminate waits of more than 18 months if not for the junior doctors’ strikes - Getty Images

Health chiefs have pledged action to boost NHS phonelines to help patients beat the 8am scramble to see a GP.

NHS officials said a recovery plan for primary care will improve access to see family doctors, and help patients to secure an appointment.

In January a report by the Office for National Statistic found one in four patients who needed to see a GP could not get an appointment in the previous month.

Some 30 per cent said they had had difficulty contacting their practice while more than half who secured an appointment found it “difficult” or “very difficult” to get the slot.

The recovery plan for GPs will promise to overhaul the sector, and ensure more practices introduce “cloud-based telephony systems” so that patients can get through.

Practices have already been told they must no longer tell patients to call back later, and instead ensure the right help is available, or signposted.

‘Too many analogue phone systems’

Chris Hopson, chief strategy officer at NHS England said the  new plan would set out “how we are going to improve access to GP appointments” saying “there are some specific proposals to actually deal with the 8am rush.”

“If you actually look at GP surgeries across the country, there are still far too many that are on analogue phone systems, which means you can’t queue, which means you can’t call back when you need to. So one of the things we will be setting out is how we address those kinds of issues” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

The British Medical Association has already objected to this year’s contract - which instructs them not to tell patients to call back later - and has suggested GPs may go on strike over it.

The NHS chief also said the health service could make “significant dents” in plugging workforce shortages by working “smarter” and more efficiently, its chief strategy officer has said.

It comes as ministers review a workforce plan which will set out a mass expansion of apprentice schemes and other roles as part of efforts to tackle growing staff shortages.

Drafts of the plan produced by NHS England suggest that more than half a million extra workers are needed in less than 15 years.

Earlier this year, NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard called for a big increase in the training of homegrown doctors and nurses, warning that hospitals are “over-reliant” on foreign staff.

Asked about the workforce plan on the Today programme, Mr Hopson said: “We’ve written (it), we’ve done the work, we’ve basically now set out what numbers we need over the next 15 years to ensure that our currently very pressured front line staff have a sustainable workload.

“That is with Government, it is for Government to announce and it’s for Government, obviously, to fund that.”

‘Working smarter’

Asked if half a million staff shortages was in the right ballpark, Mr Hopson said the figure was similar to that drawn up by independent experts.

He added: “What we would need to do is identify how by working more efficiently, by working smarter, we can make significant dents in that without necessarily having to invest in, you know, vast expansion.

“But we know we absolutely need to have more training places and that’s one of the things that we set out in the plan and that’s something that our chief executive has also set out clearly publicly.”

Official data shows that in the quarter to September 2022, there were around 133,400 full-time vacancies.

Mr Hopson suggested the NHS would have hit its target to eliminate waits of more than 18 months if not for the junior doctors’ strikes.

Analysis by Health Service Journal suggests the April target would have been missed regardless, with around 11,0000 left waiting - a figure which increased by 2,000 because of the three-day walkouts.

Mr Hopson said: “We hit the first milestone last July and before we hit the latest round of industrial action, we were absolutely on target to hit the next target, which is to virtually eliminate people who’ve been waiting longer than 18 months.

“We were on target to hit that in April ... we were absolutely on course but don’t forget we had to reschedule 175,000 appointments as a result of the latest junior doctor strike and we’re currently heading for a four-day strike in a fortnight’s time.”