>Some 15,269 patients are dealt with just one ‘full-time equivalent’ GP at the Buckinghamshire surgery.
It’s worth pointing out that, unlike a normal business, a GP doesn’t have control over how many ‘customers’ they have. The local CCG guarantees that you can see a doctor in your local area … if that surgery is already oversubscribed, then now they’re even more oversubscribed. The GP can apply to close their books to new patients (just like dentists do) but it will be denied by the CCG unless another GP steps in to take up the slack.
1791 patients per gp. Not sure if that’s good or not because the mail article needs more pixels. Altho I think my doc died around 10 years ago so don’t know who my new one is.
The average gp to patient ratio at time of writing was 2.8 / 1000 in the UK which even then was below the average of 3.0 amongst most OECD countries.. which it also provides data for, some surprises on that graph!
It is grim though, I mean that was 5 years ago.. continuation of cuts and a pandemic on top since
I’m in one of the lowest patient-doctor ratio areas and I still can’t get an appointment, it must be utter hell at the other end of the scale
4 comments
>Some 15,269 patients are dealt with just one ‘full-time equivalent’ GP at the Buckinghamshire surgery.
It’s worth pointing out that, unlike a normal business, a GP doesn’t have control over how many ‘customers’ they have. The local CCG guarantees that you can see a doctor in your local area … if that surgery is already oversubscribed, then now they’re even more oversubscribed. The GP can apply to close their books to new patients (just like dentists do) but it will be denied by the CCG unless another GP steps in to take up the slack.
1791 patients per gp. Not sure if that’s good or not because the mail article needs more pixels. Altho I think my doc died around 10 years ago so don’t know who my new one is.
Article from BMJ dating back to 2017[https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2940](https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2940)
The average gp to patient ratio at time of writing was 2.8 / 1000 in the UK which even then was below the average of 3.0 amongst most OECD countries.. which it also provides data for, some surprises on that graph!
It is grim though, I mean that was 5 years ago.. continuation of cuts and a pandemic on top since
I’m in one of the lowest patient-doctor ratio areas and I still can’t get an appointment, it must be utter hell at the other end of the scale