Millions of Brits forced to wait a MONTH for GP appointment as services hits breaking point

MILLIONS of patients had to wait a month before seeing their doctor as GP services in Britain reach breaking point

As many as 15 million appointments were delayed more than 28 days in the 12 months leading up to August.

A similar number were kept waiting between 22 and 28 days and even more were forced to wait between 15 and 21 days.

Those figures mean a total of 55 million GP surgery visits took more than two weeks.

A £2million scheme has been introduced to try and bring in an extra 2,000 GPs from abroad but has so far only found 350 candidates – with as few as 58 actually in place as of June, reports.

Dr Richard Vautrey, chair of the British Medical Association’s GP committee, said the future of the NHS was hanging in the balance amid a “chronic lack of resources”.

He said: “If doctors are tired, the risk of making a mistake increases and, bit by bit, the risk to patient safety becomes all the more real.

"This isn’t just a bad day at the office – for growing numbers of GPs it’s every day and patients suffer as a result.”

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “GPs and our teams will see well over a million patients every day. But whilst we are working ever harder to deliver care to patients, the number of GPs is falling.”

UK patients made 309 appointments in the year to August.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Two in three appointments happen within seven days of being booked, but we are determined to reduce GP waiting times further.

"Through our NHS Long Term Plan we are investing an extra £4.5billion a year by 2023-24 into primary and community care, including funding up to 20,000 extra staff in GP practices – helping to free-up doctors to spend more time with patients.”