B&NES GP wait times soar as Bath MP challenges Minister on the Government’s failure to address the crisis

6 December 2022

During a debate on the NHS workforce crisis, Wera Hobhouse, MP for Bath, challenged the Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, over the Government’s failure to properly address the crisis befalling GPs. Research by the House of Commons Library, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, shows that in the sub-Integrated Care Board of Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire has seen wait times rise by 7% in the last year alone.

During her challenges to the Health Secretary, Mrs Hobhouse suggested that there needed to be a reworking of the health system to relax the pressures on GP surgeries. It has been suggested that the Government’s failure to invest properly in primary care out in peoples homes and the community means people are either forced into surgeries or A&E waiting rooms. This only serves to clog up the system and these delays are what leads to the acute pressures. Simply hiring more GPs, as is the Government’s current primary policy, will not fix the systemic problems they have failed to address.

On the Government’s own primary strategy of more GPs they seem to be missing the mark. Since January 2019 the number of GP appointments has risen by 23% yet the House of Commons Library data revealed that in the B&NES sub-ICB the number of permanent GPs fell by 2% since 2018.  Even when the number of trainees and locums are considered, the total growth in GP numbers for the sub-ICB is 6%. A shortfall of 17% when put next to national demand increases.

This is having a knock on effect on waiting times. In the Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire sub-ICB, 4 in 10 people are waiting over 7 days for a GP appointment and 1 in 4 are waiting over 14 days for one. These numbers are up 6% and 7% respectively compared to last year in October 2021.

Wera Hobhouse, MP for Bath, commented:

“The NHS has been mismanaged and under-resourced by the Conservatives. We are now seeing the disastrous consequences of their wilful negligence.

“The lack of long term workforce planning and investment in primary care is putting GP surgeries in impossible positions. Too few staff and not enough care in the community has pushed the health service to breaking point.

“This winter will be horrifically hard for all who work in our wonderful NHS. They have been unforgivably let down by the Conservatives. We will not forget it come the next election.”