It Is Expected That Patients Will Receive GP Appointments Within Two Weeks, According To The Health Secretary

Therese Coffey has pledged to free up over a million appointments a year by employing more support staff and installing new phones.

Therese Coffey will tell the Commons that patients with the most pressing concerns should also be seen on the same day, as part of a campaign to improve access to doctors’ appointments.

The government won’t put an official target in place and there won’t be recourse for patients if practices don’t adhere to the expectation put on them.

Therese Coffey told the BBC that it wasn’t about being excessively rigid from Whitehall about just how a GP should conduct their practice, but she’s pledged to lift some of the hurdles that exist in GP practices to help meet the timeframe through recruiting additional support staff, including GP assistants and advanced nurse practitioners, to allow GPs to concentrate on seeing patients, asserting the move will free up one million appointments a year.

New cloud-based telephone systems will also be installed to enable people to get through to surgeries more efficiently, something that was suggested by her predecessor. Steve Barclay.

The health secretary will tell MPs that she’s going to put a laser-like emphasis on the needs of patients, making their priorities her priorities and being a champion for them on matters that concern them most.

She said that their Plan for Patients will make it easier to get a general practice appointment and they will work tirelessly to deliver that, alongside supporting their hardworking GP teams.

She said that they know this winter will be difficult and this was just the first phase in their work to support the valued NHS and social care services so people could get the care they require.

Nonetheless, the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, told Sky News the solutions being put forward by Therese Coffey were barely sticking plasters, saying that after 12 years of this, it was evident that the longer the conservatives were in power, the longer patients would wait.

And one body which represents health trusts in England and Wales said the measures would not come close to solving wait times and the body representing GPs said it was not a plan.

As part of her plan, Therese Coffey will appeal to the people to take part in a national endeavour to support health and social care, encouraging volunteers who came forward during the COVID pandemic to offer up their services again.

However, it appears that GPs have given up on their patients, while the poor nurses are doing most of the donkey work when patients turn up at A&E because they can’t be seen by their own GP, and even though Therese Coffey is attempting to put the sticking plasters on things, have they even told GPs that they have to get back to work again?

At the moment, even though people don’t realise it, we are in a recession, so where’s all this money supposed to come from? Nothing is free in this world, and taxpayers are paying for it.

The entire system requires an overhaul, starting directly from the top because there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians, and we need to start training our own people and quit depending on other nations to train doctors and nurses. We also need to start charging overseas patients – other nations do it, so why do we find it so hard to ask for payment from others? When you go to a hospital abroad the first thing they ask is, have you got insurance or a credit card, why can’t we do the same?