NHS 'ticking time bomb' as more than half of sick Brits haven't seen a doctor in a year

14 July 2022, 16:19 | Updated: 14 July 2022, 16:52

Patients are putting off booking GP appointments because they find it too difficult as the number of people waiting to start treatment on the NHS have risen to a record 6.6 million.

The figure, from the end of May, is up 100,000 in a month and is the highest since records began in August 2007.

It comes as staff absences due to Covid-19 jumped to their highest level for nearly three months, putting further pressure on health teams struggling to clear the backlog of treatment.

Dr Fiona Donald, president of the RCOA said: "The NHS is facing an anaesthetic workforce time bomb."

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New NHS data has shown a declining satisfaction with family doctors with more than a quarter of patients (27%) having not made an appointment because they found it too difficult, up from 11% in 2021.

Some 72% of patients in England said they had had a good experience of their GP practice early in 2022, down from 83% the previous year.

The annual GP Patient Survey also found that 72% of the 719,000 respondents were satisfied with the appointment they were offered the last time they tried to book one, down from 82% the previous year.

Some 55% of patients who needed an appointment said they had avoided making one in the last 12 months, up from 42% in 2021.

The poll also found that the proportion of patients who said it was easy to get through to someone at their GP practice on the phone has fallen sharply over the last decade.

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Beccy Baird, senior fellow at independent think tank the King's Fund, said: "For many of us, general practice is the front door to the NHS - these results show that patients are finding that door increasingly hard to push open.

"GPs are working harder than ever before, yet these findings show a dramatic fall in patients' experience of getting an appointment.

"Many of the challenges patients face accessing their GP stem from the chronic staff shortages that have plagued services for years.

"Practices can't recruit enough GPs, nurses or other professionals to meet the rising levels of need, because in many cases those staff simply don't exist.

"There has been a failure of successive governments to adequately plan and invest in the future NHS workforce, a failure that has left GPs and patients to pick up the pieces."

It comes as other data shows that ambulance response times have got significantly worse and the NHS waiting list is at an all-time high.

The number of patients testing positive for the virus continues to rise, driven by the latest wave of infections.

An average of 22,918 hospital staff in England were absent each day in the week to July 6, either because they were sick with Covid-19 or were self-isolating.

This is up 30% on the previous week, and the highest since 23,813 absences in the week to April 20.

The figure is below the level reached at the peak of the first Omicron wave in early January, when absences due to coronavirus averaged nearly 54,000.

But the rise mirrors other data showing Covid is becoming steadily more prevalent, with the potential to cause further disruption to health and care services.

The figures, from NHS England, also show an average of 78,940 hospital staff were absent due to any kind of sickness or self-isolation each day in the week to July 6, the equivalent of around 6% of the total workforce.

This number reached nearly 9% at the peak of the first Omicron wave.

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Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, said: "There is no doubt the NHS still faces significant pressures, from rising Covid admissions, thousands of staff absences due to the virus, the heatwave, and record demand for ambulances and emergency care.

"While the current heatwave is not shown in today's figures, it also affects NHS capacity - but it remains important that anyone needing emergency care dials 999, and the public use 111 online and local pharmacies for other health issues and advice."

The number of people in hospital in England who have tested positive for Covid-19 currently stands at 13,741, up 20% week on week and close to the peak reached during the Omicron BA.2 wave in the spring.

Patient levels remain well below those seen during the pre-vaccine waves of the virus in 2020 and early 2021, however.

The current wave is being driven by the coronavirus subvariants Omicron BA.4 and BA.5.

Around six in 10 patients who test positive for Covid-19 are being treated primarily for something else rather than the virus, but still need to be kept isolated from other patients, placing further demands on hospital staff and resources.