Why Can’t I get an Appointment?

GP practices across the country are experiencing significant and growing strain with declining GP numbers, rising demand, struggles to recruit and retain staff and knock-on effects for patients.

The British Medical Association (BMA) provides analysis on the pressures in general practice and is updated monthly with new data.  https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/nhs-delivery-and-workforce/pressures/pressures-in-general-practice-data-analysis

Fewer doctors are looking after greater numbers of patients

At the same time, the number of practices is also falling. While many practices have entered into mergers, some practices have permanently closed. As of December 2024, 1,396 practices have closed since 2015. Factors causing this can include partner retirements, the inability to recruit staff or GP partners. 

Whilst the GP workforce has been declining, the number of patients continues to increase, demonstrating the ever-mounting workload in general practice. In December 2024, another record-high of 63.72 million patients were registered with GP practices in England, an increase of 6.82 million since 2015.  As a result, the average number of patients each full-time equivalent GP is responsible for now stands at 2,260. This is an increase of 322 patients per GP (17%) since 2015. Source: BMA analysis of NHS General Practice Workforce data.

GP’s are on your side

We know General Practice is collapsing. Every practice across England is struggling to see a way to keep its doors open, including us.

We value our patients. We know that most patients value us too, especially when they need us regularly. You know we can deal with most of your health problems, keep you out of hospital, and have your best interests at heart. The problem is with the mismanagement of the NHS. The British Medical Association (BMA) has therefore launched the GP’s are on your side campaign, because we 100% are.

The GP is an expert in general medical practice – trained over 10 years to deal with complex problems, spot serious symptoms, decide when you need specialist help at the hospital, or refer you to a fellow healthcare professional in our primary care network, or another local service.  They have trained our patient care services team to triage your queries so you get to the most appropriate person for your complaint first time, therefore freeing up the GP appointments for complaints that can only be delt with by them.

We believe general practice deserves a bigger slice of NHS funding so we can train and hire more GPs, deliver the services you require and make it easier for you and your loved ones to get appointments to see your GP and practice team.

The Maples wants the same things that you do. We believe nobody should struggle to get an appointment at their GP Surgery.

General Practice should be as it once was – a familiar family doctors surgery, offering continuity of care in a surgery full of friendly familiar faces within a safe building where you knew you would get the care you needed.

We have previously applied to our Integrated Care Board (ICB) to close our register to new patients to focus on providing services to those already registered with us.  This is not a decision the practice is allowed to make itself but needs to be reviewed and approved by them.  It was declined as it was felt that the strain on the practice was not sufficient to warrant this.

Every Day The Maples provides the maximum safe number of appointments we can. Ultimately, we do not have unlimited resources and are currently working to the maximum capacity our funding allows.

We have 12,600 registered patients but due to outdated funding mechanisms we are only paid to provide services for 10,844 of them, meaning we are already faced with barriers to meeting the demand for services.

 We receive just £112.50 per year for this adjusted patient figure. That’s less than the cost of an annual TV license.  This equates to the practice receiving less than 31p a day for every patient registered with us, to provide however many appointments that patient needs within the practice.

Our funding will be further reduced when the new national insurance measures come into place, along with the increase in minimum wage in April 2025.  These increases are not funded by NHS England for General practice (although hospital and secondary care will be funded) and will have a substantial effect on services we can afford to provide.  Staffing levels have had to be reduced to try and mitigate some of these costs.

We have raised the above issues with our MP Lewis Cocking when we invited him to visit to the practice and see what barriers we are facing when trying to provide the level of service you require.  He in turn raised these concerns with James Murray (Exchequer Secretary to the treasury) who provided no assurances that General practice will receive sufficient funding to enable to provide the services we want to our patients.

We report our demand daily to our ICB, but this has not seen any extra funding or support offered to help us meet these challenges.

How you can help?

You can contact our MP Mr Lewis Cocking and raise your concerns with him as we already have.

Finally – please consider is your complaint best seen by the GP practice? There are now many other alternatives to seeing a GP for minor illness and injury, and by using these other services first, it may relive some of the pressure on the practice. These include: