GP delays Sheffield: City 'worst' in country for waiting times, with thousands waiting at least four weeks

Sheffield has the highest number of delays in England for NHS patients trying to book an appointment with their GP, new figures reveal.
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Journalists from the The Star’s parent company JPI Media’s specialist data team took a look at figures for delays – and found that the Sheffield NHS Care Commissioning Group (CCG) came bottom of 25 local teams where some patients faced long waits to see a doctor.

Out of 271,174 appointments made in Sheffield GP surgeries in December, 18,215 took place more than 28 days after the booking was made, which is a proportion of 6.7 per cent.

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Next on the list was Derby and Derbyshire CCG, covering the whole county. Out of 496,320 total appointments, 27,235 took place more than 28 days after the booking was made, a proportion of 5.5 per cent.

Sheffield GP surgeries have the highest number of patients waiting more than 28 days to be seen in England, according to NHS figuresSheffield GP surgeries have the highest number of patients waiting more than 28 days to be seen in England, according to NHS figures
Sheffield GP surgeries have the highest number of patients waiting more than 28 days to be seen in England, according to NHS figures

Barnsley was fourth worst – out of 108,855 appointments, 5,352, or 4.9 per cent, took place more than 28 days after the booking.

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More than three-quarters of a million people in England waited more than four weeks to see a GP after making an appointment in December last year.

The national total was 25,077,056, with 784,541, 3.1 per cent, taking place more than four weeks after the appointment was made. Sheffield’s percentage is more than double that figure.

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Similarly, this applied to 3.2 per cent of GP appointments in November nationally.

‘We have created more capacity for people to access appointments’

However, there may be a number of reasons why some people might wait a month to see a GP, including booking a follow-up appointment.

You can see the full list here.

Dr Zak McMurray, GP and Medical Director at NHS Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), responded to the figures.

He said: “Practices have been and remain extremely busy, seeing more patients than ever before at the same time as delivering the biggest vaccination programme we’ve ever seen as part of the Covid pandemic response.

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“Infection prevention measures also continue to have an effect on practices’ capacity and ability to see people, as do staff absences due to having to isolate with Covid.

“The CCG is supporting practices during these additional pressures. We have created more capacity for people to access appointments when they need them through increasing extended access to GP services, making more evening and weekend appointments available for patients.

“We have also funded additional Advanced Nurse Practitioners who are available in practices to provide an urgent same-day care service and we have funded a GP home visiting service using paramedics supported by a GP. We also offer support to individual practices who may be struggling with staffing shortages due to Covid or other problems to help them to continue to provide services.

“We regularly analyse feedback from patients and understand that some people have been finding it hard to get through to their practice to book appointments. We understand how frustrating this can be and can assure people that if they do need an urgent appointment they will be seen.

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“We haven’t received any feedback that patients are having to wait more than 28 days for an appointment. The data can be misleading as it includes follow up appointments so for example, if a patient needs a follow-up appointment in six weeks’ time, this will be included in this data too.

"It also does not show all of the practices’ workload as it only contains information captured on the GP practice systems. This limits the activity reported on and does not represent all work happening within a practice or assess the complexity of activity."

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