Pressure on GP services in Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes leaves patients 'angry'

Increasing pressures on GP services in an area has left patients "angry".

NHS figures for Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Clinical Commissioning Group (BLMK CCG) showed in March, each GP had 325 more patients than in 2018.

Helen White, whose husband has struggled for months to see a GP face-to-face, said it was "not good enough".

The CCG said it was working to grow and retain GPs and "headway" had been made to increase trainee placements.

The figures showed each GP in the area had about 2700 patients - a year-on-year increase since 2018.

The government said it was working to grow the workforce and improve access to GPs and tackle the Covid-19 backlog.

Mrs White, from Biddenham, close to Bedford, said her husband, Martin, 51, had ongoing sleep problems and had not been able to see a doctor face-to-face this year.

"He has been failed as a patient, this has been going on since before March," she said.

"He's anxious, quite down, he's physically and mentally exhausted and it has a knock-on effect with the rest of the family.

"He's desperate for help."

Dave Hodgson, the Liberal Democrat elected mayor of Bedford Borough Council, said the situation was "really bad".

"I'm getting more and more emails and phone calls about the length of time it takes people to get appointments: two weeks is pretty regular, some it takes three or longer, and trying to get through is really difficult," he said.

"We need to have more GPs."

He has heard of people giving up trying to see a GP and going to drop-in centres and accident and emergency, he added.

Dr Tajvir Gill, from Putnoe Medical Centre in Bedford, is the clinical director for the East Bedford Primary Care Network.

He has been a GP for six years but said this was "the hardest it's been".

He said people had been putting off medical complaints due to the pandemic and now wanted to be seen, when the practice was also catching up with its backlog.

He said the practice was doing what it could and was using paramedics, nurses, mental health workers, physiotherapists to ease the burden.

"Recruiting GPs in Bedford is difficult.

"Lots of colleagues are thinking of retirement because of the stresses of the job."

He said it was "difficult to make people stay" as there were so many other options in the industry.

BLMK CCG said its GP headcount increased from 511 in 2015 to 518 in March 2022 but full-time equivalent GPs had reduced.

It said initiatives to grow its GP workforce included fellowships, mentor schemes, flexible pool schemes and bespoke local initiatives to support its GP educators and GP trainees.

"We have made significant headway in increasing our local GP trainee placements specifically in Bedford Borough and met our August 2022 target," it said.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care said it was working to "grow the workforce, improve access to GPs and tackle the Covid backlog to ensure everyone receives the care they need".

It had invested £520m to expand GP capacity during the pandemic on top of £1.5 billion until 2024, she said.

"There were over 1,400 more doctors working in general practice in March 2022 compared to the same time in 2019 and a record-breaking number started training as GPs last year.''

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