NHS Digital has today (24 November) released GP practice level data, which informs the public about appointments within primary care. The aim of the publication is to inform the public about activity and usage of General Practice appointments historically and how primary care is impacted by seasonal pressures, such as winter.
General practice teams across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire are delivering more appointments (with GPs, nurses and healthcare assistants) than ever – with approximately 52,500 more appointments recorded as taking place in August – October 2022 compared to the pre pandemic levels of August – October 2019.
Nottingham and Nottinghamshire practices continue to work hard to improve the experience of patients and have put a number of extra roles in place in general practices to help alleviate pressures and patient waiting times to be seen, with more people providing patient care than ever before. These appointments have not been included in the data released today.
We are incredibly proud of our general practice colleagues who continue to work extremely hard during these pressurised times, where we are seeing more demand than ever on NHS services.
The data published for October 2022 for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire demonstrates around 71% of appointments were in person (in line with the national average), with 38% taking place on the same day (39% nationally) and approximately 76% of patients seen within two weeks (80% nationally).
NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire continues to work with NHS England to provide support to practices through the Access Improvement Programme to help reduce waiting times for appointments and improve patient experience.
Please note that this data is described as experimental and as a result has limitations, details of which can be found here.