National data published this week shows that 697,242 appointments were delivered by GP Practices in North Central London (NCL) – Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington – during October 2022.
This figure is an increase of 23,093 appointments compared to October 2021 and continues the trend of practices in NCL providing increasing numbers of appointments to local patients.
General practice is the first point of contact with NHS services for many people. Health and care leaders in NCL thank our GP practice teams, as well as staff providing patient care in our out of hours services and primary care networks, for their continued commitment and hard work in offering high-quality care, treatment and support for their patients.
The data that has been published allows individuals to see the following information for general practice:
- appointment status: attended, did not attend and unknown
- appointment mode: face-to-face, telephone, home visit, video and unknown
- healthcare professional: GP, other and unknown
- wait time from booking to appointment
- appointment duration.
This is the first time this data has been made available to the public and although this data contains important information, it does not capture all the work happening within local practices or provide an indicator of the quality of care provided.
Practices across NCL continue to work incredibly hard to offer patients the right support and to meet demand.
Overall, our practices are doing 15–30% more activity than they were before the pandemic, with appointments offered across 7 days in all five boroughs.
We know that many people value face-to-face appointments, and the proportion of appointments held in person is rising across NCL.
Face-to-face appointments will continue to be available at every practice alongside online, telephone and video appointments – which can be a convenient and flexible way to speak to a healthcare professional.
We have an incredibly diverse population in North Central London and recognise that what works for one patient list may not work for another; for instance, GP practices with an older population may need to offer a greater proportion of face-to-face appointments while the reverse may be true for a practice serving a working age population.
In NCL, we will continue to work with our 179 practices to support quality, positive outcomes and patient experience, and develop the data and information to underpin this.