Scots patients have to wait longest to see a doctor

A THIRD of Scots have waited more than a week to get an appointment with their GP in the past year, research suggests.

A survey found that 35 per cent of patients in Scotland said they had waited at least seven days to see their doctor, with only Wales reporting more (39 per cent) facing week-long waits.

Scotland also had the lowest number of patients who said they had been seen by a GP within 48 hours of making contact with their surgery – 22 per cent compared to a high of 37 per cent in the East Midlands.

Patients groups said sometimes people could face longer waits because they demanded to see a particular GP, but called for doctor numbers to increase to improve access.

The Scottish Government said their figures showed that the vast majority of patients could get access to someone at their surgery – either a doctor or nurse – face-to-face or on the phone within two days.

The latest survey, carried out by Aviva UK Health, questioned 2,000 people across the UK about face-to-face access to their GP.

Overall, 27 per cent of patients said they had to wait more than a week for an appointment with their doctor, with 65 per cent saying they lived with medical problems longer than they would like or avoided going to their GP altogether because they were unable to get an appointment at a suitable time.

But across the country, 80 per cent of patients said they were happy with the quality of medical treatment or advice they received once they had seen a health professional.

Dr Doug Wright, head of clinical development at Aviva UK Health, said: “We know that GPs are under pressure and that time constraints are a significant issue, so it’s clear that some patients are feeling the knock-on effects in longer waits for an appointment and not getting the right treatment as quickly as they’d like.”

In 2008, the Scottish Government introduced extra payments for practices in return for offering extended opening times to improve access. The latest figures suggest more than 70 per cent of surgeries are now offering appointments outside normal times.

Margaret Watt, chairwoman of the Scotland Patients’ Association, said sometimes patients could increase the time they waited by demanding to see a particular doctor.

But she added: “GPs do an excellent job, but it is the funding that lets them down because they could do with a lot more doctors. By having more doctors, anomalies where people wait longer for appointments would not happen.”

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “In Scotland, our target is for NHS boards and GP surgeries to ensure 48 hour access or advance booking to an appropriate member of the GP practice team and that target remains in place.

“Our most recent survey results show that this was achieved in 94.3 per cent, against a target of 90 per cent.”