Published on: 14 November 2022
The month of September* saw nearly a half million GP appointments across Herefordshire and Worcestershire (457,275) with 65 per cent of these (296,167) being face to face and nearly half of these (198,363) were seen on the day.
Across the two counties the average number of appointments per practice is also high, at 5,788 for the month of September 2022, which is more than re-pandemic levels.
Lynda Dando, Director for Primary Care at NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire said:
Despite the growing pressures and challenges for General Practice across the country, our GP practices perform consistently above regional and national levels regarding the number of appointments to population as well as the average number of appointments per practice.
We know there is still scope for improvement to accessing appointments in some areas, and some people will have individual issues, but it’s important to note that as a whole we are fortunate to consistently have some of the highest quality care across England.
GPs have also rolled out a new Enhanced Access Service this month which opens up more appointments in the evenings and weekends including some routine monitoring like blood tests. Appointments can also be accessed through NHS 111.
Practices have a wide compliment of professionals working alongside GPs so that people can access the help they need quicker and in some cases without having to wait to see a GP, for example physiotherapists, mental health practitioners and social prescribers.
