Patients at risk over lack of time

GPs' urgent warning as they do more with less

- MARTIN BAGOT

ABOUT 60% of GPS say they do not have time to properly assess patients during appointments.

Roughly the same amount say they don't have time to build relationships with patients to provide quality care.

And around 75% of GPs said their excessive workloads are compromising patient safety, according to the study.

Professor Kamila Hawthorne, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, which carried out the research, said: "We desperately want to spend more time with our patients to treat the whole person and provide the continuity many of our patients need - but our time is so constricted.

"Each fully qualified, full-time GP is now, on average, responsible for 198 more patients than five years ago.

"This is not manageable and has a huge impact on how much time we can spend with our patients." General practice is providing record numbers of appointments despite having almost 500 fewer family doctors than five years ago. Analysis by the House of Commons Library last year showed one in six GP appointments in England lasted five minutes or less.