General practice appointment data1
Monthly appointment data, April 2024
- Total consultations: General practice staff delivered 30.7 million consultations in April 2024.
- Appointments on the same day: 13.6 million consultations were delivered on the same day as booking (3.3 million more than in April 2019), this was 45% of all appointments.
- Appointments within two weeks: 24.9 million consultations were delivered within two weeks of booking (5.4 million more than in April 2019), this was 82% of all appointments.
- Face-to-face appointments: 19.9 million consultations were carried out face to face (approximately 1 million more than in April 2019), this was 65% of all appointments.
- Appointments by GPs: 13.7 million consultations were led by GPs (1.1 million more than in April 2019), this was 45% of all appointments.
Data on healthcare inequalities
- Practices in areas with the highest levels of income deprivation have on average 300 (14.4%) more patients per fully qualified GP than practices with the lowest levels of income deprivation (as of October 2022). This discrepancy has increased 50% since Oct 20183.
- Research from the Health Foundation in 2021 showed that after accounting for the increased workload associated with greater health needs in more deprived areas, GPs in deprived parts of England received 7% less funding per need-adjusted patient than GPs in affluent areas4.
Investment in primary care
- The NHS confederation has calculated that if funding patterns across all areas matched those areas that increased spending the most, every additional £1 spent on primary care would increase economic output by £145.
RCGP surveys
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, horizons continue to shift rapidly. The RCGP always works to place the GP voice at the centre of decisions affecting the delivery of care and patient health. One of the ways in which we can do this is by running short-timescale ad-hoc surveys to ensure that we know the issues GPs are facing, and their extent.
We use the results to inform conversations we have with key Government and NHS decision-makers, to feed into policy statements and reports and to support our campaigns and communications. This page includes the topline results from those surveys.
Survey results
GP experiences: RCGP Tracking Survey of 1,855 GPs, 20236
In our latest annual survey, many GPs told us that they don't have sufficient time. This is having an impact on the quality of patient care that can be delivered:
- 56% of GPs say they don't have enough time in appointments to adequately assess and treat patients.
- 57% of GPs say they don't have enough time in appointments to build the patient relationships they need to deliver quality care.
- 46% of GPs say they don't have enough time in appointments to ensure patient safety.
Read the full results of the RCGP Tracking Survey 2023 (PDF file, 863 KB).
RCGP Survey of ST3 AiT Members: snapshot into GP jobs and visa issues
Our survey found significant concerns amongst this cohort relating to GP employment post-qualification, highlighting challenges with finding appropriate roles across the country, including significant difficulties relating to visa sponsorship:
- Only 47% of respondents have secured an NHS GP job in the UK, with 41% of them finding the process moderately or very difficult.
- 23% of those who secured a role required visa sponsorship from their new employer.
- 29% of those currently struggling to find an appropriate role said they could not find a practice that could sponsor them for their visa.
- Significant difficulties were reported in finding appropriate roles, particularly in Greater Manchester, Birmingham and Black Country. There were overlaps between areas where difficulties were reported and areas with higher rates of socioeconomic deprivation.
- The survey highlights considerable stress and anxiety among trainees due to employment pressures.
These results show the need for urgent action to address and mitigate the employment barriers GPs currently face. We welcome the new ARRS funding and are ready to collaborate to ensure the implementation of the ARRS GP funding is as effective as possible. We’ve presented recommendations on this to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, which you can read via RCGP news.
- RCGP External Report of Survey for AiT ST3 Trainees for CCT August (PDF file, 479 KB)
- RCGP Topline Tables of Survey for AiT ST3 Trainees for CCT August (PDF file, 868 KB)
COVID-19 surveys
- RCGP member survey – UK vaccination programme topline tables - 28 January 2021 (336 KB PDF)
- Workload in General Practice in Wales: Topline tables - 23 December 2020 (330 KB PDF)
- Summary findings and toplines from remote working survey - 21 September 2020 (438 KB PDF)
- Long COVID survey summary and topline tables - 8 September 2020 (388 KB PDF)
- GP activity / workload over the COVID-19 pandemic and now - 23 July 2020 (453 KB PDF)
- GP working from home survey toplines tables - 8 April 2020 (279 KB PDF)
- Covid-19 advice and guidance - 26 March 2020 (267 KB PDF)
- NHS Digital, "Appointments in General Practice-Series”, May 2024 (accessed 30 May 2024).
- NHS Digital, “General Practice Workforce-Series”, May 2024 (accessed 30 May 2024).
- Office for National Statistics, "Trends in patient-to-staff numbers in General Practices in England: 2022", December 2022 (accessed 6 February 2023).
- The Health Foundation, "Response to the Health and Social Care Select Committee’s inquiry – The Future of General Practice", 2021.
- NHS Confederation, “Creating Better Health Value: Understanding the economic impact on NHS spending by care setting”, August 2023 (accessed 1 December 2023).
- RCGP, "2023 Member Tracking Survey" (PDF file, 863 KB), 2024.
Contact us for more information
- RCGP policy team - policy@rcgp.org.uk
- RCGP press team - press@rcgp.org.uk
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