Patients in the UK have the shortest GP appointments in the developed world

PATIENTS in the UK have some of the shortest GP appointments in the developed world, figures show.

Doctors yesterday said it was “crazy” that more than nine in ten consultations – 92 per cent – are completed in less than 15 minutes.

And they warned times will get dangerously shorter if proposed hospital closures get the go ahead – pushing more people through surgery doors.

The benchmark compares with a combined average of 27 per cent across ten other countries, including Australia, Canada, the United States and Germany.

In Sweden, almost all appointments – 98 per cent – last more than a quarter of an hour, giving patients plenty of time to discuss their health concerns.

GP consultations in the UK typically last 10 minutes 36 seconds, data from the Health Foundation think tank show.

They last 23 minutes 42 seconds in Sweden, 20 minutes 30 seconds in France, and 19 minutes 54 seconds in Switzerland.

The number of consultations carried out in the UK has already risen by nearly a quarter in the past five years.

And some patients are being forced to wait up to four weeks to see a medic.

GPs say the ageing population means growing numbers of people have complex conditions that cannot be dealt with in the normal 10-minute consultation.

Health chiefs have drafted 44 money-saving transformation plans for health care in England, with many proposing to reduce hospital care and push services into the community.

Dr Helen Stokes-Lampard, president of the Royal College of GPs, said: “We have the shortest consultations in Europe. It is a crazy situation.

“They want to push more care out of hospitals, but we do not have the resources or infrastructure in the community to cope.

“We will need to provide more complex care. That takes time – longer than the ten minutes we get now. I really worry what will happen.

“The typical patient has a range of multiple conditions.

“They can have diabetes and heart disease and some moderate depression.

“Patients can be on ten medicines. You can’t possibly provide good care in ten minutes to these sorts of patients.

“If we had longer, you could do so much more to reduce hospital admissions and repeat attendances.”

Dr Olivia Hum, a GP in Lewes, East Sussex, said: “The intensity of the work in 2017 is really bad. We work ten to 12 hours a day without a break.

“GPs are burning out, they are overworked and many are retiring early. The system is unsustainable now.

“It is not safe - the brain can’t make these decisions properly in less than ten minutes. Quality of care and patient safety is compromised.”

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, from the British Medical Association, said: “We spend less than other European countries. We have fewer doctors than other European nations.

“We have one third of the hospital beds per head compared to Germany and GPs spend less time per patient than any other European nations.

“We need to be addressing these issues as a priority.”

A poll of 1,033 UK adults by Ipsos Mori for the BBC shows the public would be open to a tougher approach on people who abuse the GP system.

Seven in ten said charging people for missed appointments would be acceptable.

A majority – 51 per cent - said they were against paying to have a guaranteed appointment within 24 hours.

But one in five – 20 per cent – said they would be willing to pay more than £10.

Both the RCGP and the BMA are against the idea of charging.

Instead, they said, the attention should be given to the impact of the local plans.

Both said the plans will result in even more complex cases being passed on to GPs once they start being introduced later this year.

The government is aiming to increase the GP workforce by 5,000 by 2020 – a rise of 16 per cent.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said the GP investment programme in England would make a real difference to doctors.

She said it would “help cut red tape, pay some of GPs’ high insurance costs, and deliver innovative new schemes to retain more GPs”.