NHS Kent and Medway is working with general practice, the local medical committee and wider NHS partners to address pressures in general practice. Like elsewhere in the country, general practice in Kent and Medway is under intense pressure.
General practice is consistently delivering more appointments than ever before, but demand is increasing.
Between April and December 2024, Kent and Medway practices delivered more than 11million appointments. These include home visits, face-to-face, video and telephone appointments.
Why are GP practices so busy?
There are lots of reasons why practices across the country are under pressure. These include:
- backlog of work built up during the pandemic, which has meant many patients are presenting with more complex issues
- increased waiting lists for surgery since the pandemic meaning some people are living with untreated conditions and need ongoing and increasingly complex support from the general practice team
- GP workload has grown in volume, complexity and intensity
- recruiting into general practice teams
- infrastructure and premises (such as buildings and telephone systems).
How are practices working?
Most practices had started to introduce telephone triage before 2020 and, although the pandemic sped up adoption in some areas, this is now how most practices work and will in the future.
Appointment requests and other queries are triaged by a trained call handler to identify the right member of staff to see the patient through the right type of appointment.
Many practices use e-consult, an online consultation system, for those people who have digital access to be able to request an appointment without needing to phone the practice.
The multi-professional team
The workforce in general practice has been changing for some time with a range of trained clinicians now working in practices, making sure patients can see the right person, first time. These include paramedics, nurse practitioners and social prescribers. More information on these roles can be found here.
When you call your practice you will be asked questions to determine who is best for you to see, which may not always be a GP.