Some areas see more than one in 10 waiting over a month for a GP appointment as “stark postcode lottery” revealed

9 Apr 2025

EMBARGO: 22.30 Wednesday 9th April

The were month long waits for a GP appointment for one in 10 in some areas with a record 20.5 million 28-day long waits occurring last year
Almost 95% of areas saw an increase in the number of month-long waits for a GP appointment last year with some areas seeing a rise of over 50%
The Liberal Democrats said the figures revealed a “stark postcode lottery” and called for patients to be given a legal right to see a GP with seven days or 24-hours if in urgent need

One in 10 waits for GP appointments were longer than a month in some areas with a record 20.5 million waits of at least 28 days or longer last year, research by the House of Commons Library, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats, has revealed.

This data measures the time between booking an appointment and it taking place.

100 of the 106 (94.3%) sub-ICBs in England saw the number of month-long waits increase last year with the starkest rise occurring in Sunderland where there was a 51% jump from 60,000 to 91,000. This was followed by North East Lincolnshire with a 46% jump and then North Cumbria which saw a 38% spike.

Kent and Medway recorded the most month-long waits of anywhere in the country with 781,000, up more than a fifth on 2023’s figure of 642,000. This was followed by Derby and Derbyshire with 722,000, up 14% on the previous total of 633,000.

The proportion of waits longer than a month also rose to a staggering one in 10 in some areas. The areas included Gloucestershire, Chorley and South Ribble, Derby and Derbyshire and Dorset.

The research also revealed the number of waits that were two-weeks or longer with the total across England hitting over 67 million. In Gloucestershire, Norfolk and Waveney, Dorset, Northumberland, Derby and Derbyshire and Nottingham and Nottinghamshire the proportion of waits longer than two-weeks was over 25%.

Kent and Medway alone had 2.4 million waits of two-weeks or longer, followed by Hampshire, Southampton and the Isle of Wight on 2.2 million and Norfolk and Waveney of 2.1 million. The largest rise in two-week waits was in North Yorkshire with a 36% jump, then North East Lincolnshire (31%) and Blackburn with Darwen (28%). 101 of the 106 sub-ICBs saw a rise in the number of two-week waits with 22% having an increase of at least 15%.

The Liberal Democrats said that the figures revealed a “stark postcode lottery” and called on the Government to give patients a legal right to see their GP within seven days or 24-hours if in urgent need. The Party said this could be done by boosting GP numbers by 8,000.

The previous Conservative government pledged to boost GP numbers by 6,000 over the course of the Parliament but fell woefully short of their promise as NHS waiting lists ballooned to a record 7.7 million.

Liberal Democrat Health and Social Care spokesperson, Helen Morgan MP said:

“These figures reveal a stark postcode lottery that is leaving people in vast swathes of the country without the care they deserve. Many already in pain are being forced into anxiety-inducing waits that only add to their suffering and leave them at risk of not getting the treatment they need in time.

“Time and again the Conservatives broke their promises to patients and ran our local health services into the ground but it is now the Labour government not showing nearly enough ambition to break this cycle of misery.

“If we are going to give communities the local health care that they need, we have to go further and faster. That means giving patients a legal right to see their GP within a week by ensuring there are 8,000 more GPs. Only then will we be able to rebuild our NHS and get patients the care they deserve.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

The research by the House of Commons Library can be found here.

Reporting on the Conservative broken GP pledge can be found here.