Anyone who needs an appointment with their doctor should get one within two weeks, according to an NHS Sussex report.
Brighton and Hove City Council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) is due to hear from NHS Sussex – the Sussex Integrated Care Board – about its plans to improve general practitioner (GP) services.
The plan for improving services in Brighton and Hove also aims to ensure that those in urgent need will be seen the same day or next day, according to their need.
The issues affecting Brighton and Hove’s GP surgeries include recruitment and retention of staff and the increasing demands related to the ageing population.
Long waits for appointments add to pressure on hospital accident and emergency (A&E) departments because people increasingly seek treatment at hospital when they need a doctor rather than urgent care.
Brighton and Hove has 31 GP practices, organised into six primary care networks, as well as 51 community pharmacies and a walk-in centre, with 333,619 registered patients as of last October.
The NHS Sussex primary care team has worked with GP clinical directors on four areas of improvement
• Improving patient access to general practice
• Disease management
• Patient experience
• Referral pathways and interface
Between April and October last year, there were 1,002,837 appointments made, compared with 955,122 in the same period in 2023.
Up to 40 per cent of appointments were same-day appointments and up to 80 per cent of patients were seen within two weeks.
Seven surgeries are involved in a “general practice improvement programme” in Brighton and Hove, run by NHS Sussex.
They are Links Road Surgery, The Avenue Surgery, Brighton Station Health Centre, Wish Park Surgery, Carden Surgery, Park Crescent Health Centre and Preston Park Surgery.
NHS Sussex said that the programme’s successes included clearing administrative backlogs, using online triage systems, freeing up 100 minutes of clinical appointment time and improving appointment setting.
The primary care networks have also increased the number of staff including more adult mental health practitioners, physiotherapists and trainee nursing associates working in GP surgeries.
All six networks are now expected to provide appointments between 6.30pm and 8pm Monday to Friday and 9am to 5pm on Saturdays through a mix of face-to-face and remote telephone, video and online appointments.
The report said: “Across Brighton and Hove, practices have been focusing upon improving their access models for patients to reflect better technology and trying to make it easier for patients to navigate how general practice works to get the support they need.
“This model sits within a wider context of efforts to improve access for patients through innovations such as the NHS App, online consultations and improving practice websites.”
The council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee is due to meet at 4pm next Wednesday (29 January). The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
Community-based care is one I constantly hear about. Pharmacy First could be massively expanded beyond its initial basic conditions and pushed to make it far easier to access GP, for example.
“The plan for improving services in Brighton and Hove also aims to ensure that those in urgent need will be seen the same day or next day, according to their need.”
In my GPs (Allied Medical Practice) it is almost impossible to get an appointment to even speak to, never mind see, a doctor at all no matter how ill you are. I recently developed a painful chest infection and ended up having to go to the walk in centre by the station for treatment having been repeatedly told by my doctors that “there are no appointment available; try phoning again tomorrow.”
Whilst surgeries continue to operate the system of ‘today only appointments” many sick people are failing to see a doctor at all.
The question is there, who turned you away with a “painful chest” and what was their qualification, rationale, and competency for doing so through a telephone without a formal exam? There’s a good chance there, and I’m sure you can elaborate if it’s not the case, you only spoke to the clerical team. It highlights an important need to triage within GP surgery, in my opinion, because there is a real risk of harm there.
The point was that after spending ages on the phone and (eventually) explaining my symptoms to a receptionist I was simply told “sorry no appointments today – Try again tomorrow.” The next day the same result – that’s when I gave up and went to the walk in centre.
The main problem is that the ‘first past the post’ system of allocating appointments can result in vulnerable people not seeing a GP. Also as surgeries only accept requests by telephone and there are invariably long waits to get through this can leave people with a limited amount of credit on their phone running out of money before getting through.
The thing that worries me more is that according to your story, for two days you had undiagnosed chest pain, and a clerical member of staff decided on triage despite having no qualification to do so.
And I agree, there needs to be more ways to book an appointment, just using a telephone is very outdated.