GPs in Dacorum: Surgeries with waiting times above the national average

Patients at some doctor’s surgeries in Dacorum have to wait far longer for appointments than at others, NHS figures show.

The data shows how many patients had to wait more than four weeks for an appointment at their local practice in October, revealing the strain many surgeries are under.

At Grove Hill Medical Centre in Kilbride Court, 5.1% of appointments in October took place more than 28 days after they were booked. Slightly lower was Apsley’s Lincoln House Surgery where this was true of 4.7% of appointments in October.

Both of these were above the national average of 3%.

Across England, nearly half of appointments in October (49%) took place on the day they were booked, analysis of the NHS Digital data found.

However, 640,000 appointments – 3% of the total – took place more than 28 days later. This didn’t include appointments which are usually booked in advance, such as medication reviews.

And in some surgeries, the proportion of patients waiting more than four weeks was far higher.

There are several factors that influence the length of time a patient has to wait for an appointment, including availability at the practice, patient availability and the urgency of the issue.

The British Medical Association, the trade union for doctors, said the monthly figures were the “highest level of GP appointments on record”.

And the Royal College of GPs said the figures showed “how hard GPs and their teams are working to deliver increasingly complex care to a growing number of patients, against a backdrop of severe workforce shortages”.