Four out of five GP practices say they are failing to keep up with demand from patients, despite a survey suggesting that family doctors carried out more than 500,000 appointments in one week alone.
The figures come from a survey of general practices across Scotland by the British Medical Association, which represents doctors.
In 88 per cent of practices, at least one member of staff has been subjected to verbal or physical abuse in the past month and 78 per cent said the situation had worsened since May.
A total of 375 surgeries took part in the survey, which is 41 per cent of GP practices in Scotland. They carried out 221,420 consultations from October 4-8, with BMA Scotland calculating that over the course of that week there were more than 500,000 face-to-face, virtual or telephone GP appointments. All the practices surveyed carried out in-person appointments every day.
Dr Andrew Buist, chairman of the BMA’s Scottish GP committee, warned: “That number of appointments is straining our workforce and GPs and their teams simply cannot sustain this indefinitely.”
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The survey found that 83 per cent of practices said that demand for appointments exceeded supply, with 42 per cent saying demand “substantially exceeded capacity”.
At least one GP position was vacant at 28 per cent, BMA Scotland estimates that could mean 225 whole-time posts are unfilled across the country.
Buist said: “It comes as absolutely no surprise that the vast majority of GP surgeries are saying there is simply not enough capacity to meet demand. Indeed 42 per cent say capacity is substantially below what is required to meet demand for care.
“While this is in part, of course, due to increased demand, it is also clearly because we don’t have enough GPs.”
Buist said that in 2017, the Scottish government had committed to recruit 800 more GPs. The survey made this action “all the more urgent”.
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With the coronavirus pandemic “still well and truly ongoing”, he said it was “not hard to see why there is huge pressure on GP appointments”. Buist said: “To put it another way, the 500,000 appointments in general practice per week is still not enough to meet current patient demand in Scotland.
“I appreciate difficulty getting an appointment can cause understandable frustration at times, but it can never be acceptable when this spills over into abuse, which our survey shows is still happening and indeed may be getting worse. We need to be absolutely clear, once and for all, that this is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
A Scottish government spokeswoman said: “We now have a record number of GPs working in Scotland with more per head in Scotland than in the rest of UK.
“We are pleased that trainee recruitment this year has so far been the most successful year of any of the last five with 99 per cent of GP training posts having been filled so far, with one recruitment round remaining.”
She added: “The NHS recovery plan highlights that staff recovery is critical to our collective ambitions for renewing our NHS and is supported by an investment of £8 million this financial year in measures to support the physical, mental and emotional needs of the workforce.
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“Patients need to see the right person at the right time and these appointments are not just with GPs. That is why in 2021-22 the primary care fund is increasing from £195 million to £250 million in direct support of general practice and will see expansion of multi-disciplinary teams in and around practices to ease GP workload and support access to a wide range of services.”
A further £28 million would be invested in primary care services this year, the spokeswoman said.
On abusive behaviour, she added: “Any kind of abuse directed towards our health service staff is totally unacceptable. They have played a pivotal role in our battle against the pandemic and deserve our gratitude and respect.”